Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about the Council’s response to her noise complaints. Further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms B, complains the Council has failed to act on the noise nuisance complaints she has raised and complains about the way officers have treated her. Ms B complains the Council has told her it will restrict her communication if she continues to raise complaints about the same issues.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. We cannot investigate a complaint where the body complained about is not responsible for the issue being raised. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(1), as amended)
5. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered the information provided by Ms B. I sent a draft decision to Ms B and invited comments before I make my final decision.

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What I found

7. Ms B complains she has suffered from noise nuisance from her neighbours since she moved to her property in January 2019. This included fire alarms, banging, noise from radiators and slamming doors.
8. An officer from the Council’s environmental health team visited Ms B’s property with a representative from the Housing Association that is Ms B’s landlord. To be able to take any enforcement action for noise nuisance, officers have to witness a statutory noise nuisance. For noise to count as a statutory nuisance, it must do one of the following:
• unreasonably and substantially interfere with the use or enjoyment of a home or other premise
• injure health or be likely to injure health
9. The officers did not witness a statutory noise nuisance and told Ms B there was no further action it could take.
10. While Ms B is unhappy with this decision, further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault by the Council because officers reached their view after visiting Ms B’s property.
11. Any ongoing issues of tenant behaviour, faulty fire alarms or the construction of the flats are matters for Ms B’s landlord rather than the Council. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has no power to investigate a complaint about Ms B’s landlord.
12. Ms B also refers to concerns about her personal information being shared. This is a matter better considered by the Information Commissioner
13. After the Council told Ms B it would not be taking any further action regarding noise, Ms B wrote letters, made telephone calls and visited the civic centre to discuss the matter. Ms B complains about the way she was spoken to and that the Council has told her it considers the level and nature of her contact is unreasonable. The Council has warned Ms B that further incidents would lead to the Council placing restrictions on her communication.
14. As the Council has not yet decided to restrict Ms B’s communication, there is no decision for Ms B to complain about. If the Council does restrict Ms B’s communication and Ms B believes there was fault with the way this decision was made, she can raise a separate complaint with the Council and come back to the Ombudsman at the end of that complaints procedure if she remains dissatisfied.

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Final decision

15. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because further consideration of the complaint is unlikely to find fault by the Council.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman