Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about a noise report the complainant made to the Council in 2017. This is because it is a late complaint and because there is insufficient evidence of injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, complains that the Council failed to properly record information about the source of noise.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if we believe the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I read the complaint and the Council’s response. I invited Mrs X to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

What happened

5. Mrs X lives in a block of flats. In August 2016 Mrs X reported knocking noises from flat 94. Mrs X lives in flat 97. The Council sent letters to Mrs X and to flat 94. Mrs X did not get in touch to say the noise was not from flat 94.
6. Mrs X rang the Council in August 2017. She spoke to an officer and says she reported she was experiencing noise from flat 96. She said the noise happened every couple of months or so. She asked for noise recording equipment. The Council agreed.
7. An officer visited Mrs X and discussed the neighbours at flats 94 and 96. The officer installed noise recording equipment. Mrs X says the machine recorded noise which all came from flat 96.
8. The Council listened to the recording but decided the level of noise was not such that the Council needed to take action against either neighbour. The Council notified Mrs X in September 2017.
9. Mrs X complained to the Council in 2019. She said she had explained she was reporting noise from flat 96. In response the Council said this information was not recorded on the file. But, it said this did not cause an injustice because an officer visited and discussed both neighbours and because the recording did not reveal excessive noise.

Assessment

10. I will not start an investigation for the following reasons.
11. This is a late complaint. Mrs X has known about the outcome of her noise report since September 2017 but she did not complain to the Ombudsman until June 2019. I have not seen any good reason to investigate a complaint which is nearly two years old.
12. I also will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of injustice. The machine would have recorded excessive noise regardless of whether the Council thought Mrs X had reported noise from flat 94 or flat 96. However, the machine did not record excessive noise. In addition, during the visit, Mrs X had another chance to explain where she thought the noise was coming from.

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Final decision

13. I will not start an investigation because it is a late complaint and because there is insufficient evidence of injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman