Summary: The Ombudsman cannot and will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that the Council failed to take action against his neighbour to prevent antisocial behaviour. We cannot investigate complaints about the Council’s management of social housing, we would be unlikely to find fault with the Council’s other actions and it is unlikely we could achieve the outcome Mr X wants.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council failed to take action against his neighbour to prevent antisocial behaviour (ASB). He says the Council has ignored his concerns and should have done more to address the problems. He also says inaction by the Council has devalued his property and so the Council should buy his property from him if he cannot sell it.

Back to top

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 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 or continue with an investigation if we believe it is unlikely we would find fault or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
4. 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)
5. We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
6. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

7. I considered the information provided by Mr X in his complaint and the Council’s responses to him.
8. I sent a copy of my draft decision to Mr X. I considered his comments before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Background

9. Mr X’s neighbour is a Council tenant. Mr X has reported problems with ASB from his neighbour for several years including noise, foul language, abuse from visitors and the poor state of the garden. Mr X says the neighbour has broken their tenancy agreement with the Council and so it should take action against them.
10. Mr X made multiple reports to the Council which he says the Council has not responded to properly. He last complained to the Council in July 2019.
11. The Council investigated how it had responded to the reports and decided it had responded properly. This included asking Mr X to complete diary sheets about the noise, installing noise monitoring equipment and attending Mr X’s property to witness the noise itself. It explained the evidence it had about noise did not justify taking formal action against the neighbour and it had closed the last report in 2018. The Council was continuing to investigate issues about the state of the garden.
12. In its final response to Mr X in September 2019, the Council suggested that Mr X report any further problems through its out of hours service. Mr X has done this and the Council has visited on two occasions to witness the noise. The Council decided the noise did not qualify as a statutory nuisance.

Analysis

13. The law places limits on what we can investigate. We cannot investigate complaints about the management of social housing by a council. The state of the neighbour’s garden is a tenancy issue and so we cannot investigate the Council’s response to reports of these issues.
14. The law also says that complaints must be made to the Ombudsman within 12 months of when someone becomes aware of the matter. The issues Mr X complains about took place several years before 2019. Many of these issues are more than 12 months before Mr X complained to the Ombudsman so would be too old for us to investigate.
15. We have discretion to set aside this rule where we decide there are good reasons. In Mr X’s case I consider it reasonable to look at matters back to when Mr X made his formal complaint to the Council, but not before this because:
• It is reasonable to expect Mr X to have complained to us within 12 months of knowing about the earlier issues;
• I appreciate Mr X says the Council did not respond to previous complaints he has made. However, Mr X could have complained to the Ombudsman about these issues before mid-2019; and
• Mr X has not provided any good reasons why he did not complain sooner.
16. Councils must investigate complaints about noise that could be a statutory nuisance and take action if it decides there has been a statutory nuisance. The information I have seen shows the Council investigated Mr X’s complaint in the way we would expect, including using noise monitoring equipment and visiting Mr X’s property.
17. The Council decided the noise did not qualify as a statutory nuisance. I appreciate Mr X disagrees. However, the Ombudsman does not act as an appeal body and we cannot intervene simply because the Council makes a decision that someone disagrees with. We cannot substitute our view for the professional judgement of the Council’s officers.
18. The evidence suggests the Council investigated Mr X’s reports of noise properly, so we would be unlikely to find fault with how the Council made its decision not to take further action.
19. Similarly, the Council should investigate reports of other ASB. Again, the information I have seen suggests the Council investigated these reports properly. Therefore, we would be unlikely to find fault with how the Council made its decision not to take formal action against the Mr X’s neighbour.
20. It is unlikely we could achieve Mr X’s desired remedy of the Council buying his property from him.

Back to top

Final decision

21. The Ombudsman cannot and will not not investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot investigate the part of Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s management of social housing, we would be unlikely to find fault with the Council’s other actions and it is unlikely we could achieve the outcome Mr X wants.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman