Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about matters related to the Council’s handling of reported noise and nuisance. Part of the complaint is late without good enough reason to investigate it now. On other points, either there is not a significant enough injustice to Mr X to warrant investigation, or investigation would be disproportionate and unlikely to achieve anything meaningful now

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council did not deal effectively with reports of noise and nuisance or with his complaint about the Council’s handling of those matters. He says this caused loss of amenity and distress and he decided to move away.

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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. 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)
3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy correspondence from the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X contacted the Council about ‘isolated issues’ with neighbours having noisy parties. He states the Council either did not get back to him as promised, or said there was nothing the Council could do. Those events were over 12 months before the complaint to the Ombudsman, so the restriction in paragraph 2 applies.
7. Mr X says he did not complain to us sooner because he was acting in ‘good faith’ and he only decided to complain when a Council manager later acted in a way he considered dismissive (see below). However, if Mr X was unhappy with the Council’s response to the parties at the time, he could reasonably have pursued the matter, including complaining to us sooner. If, on the other hand, Mr X was not really dissatisfied with the Council at the time, it would be disproportionate for us to investigate the matter now.
8. Mr X also contacted the Council about regular prolonged barking by a neighbour’s dogs. Some of that contact with the Council was over 12 months before the complaint to us, so the points in paragraphs 2 and 7 above apply to those events.
9. Mr X also contacted the Council about this matter in September 2022, 11 months before his complaint to us. He was dissatisfied with the Council’s response. Mr X has now moved away from the area. If we were to investigate, we could only investigate the incidents Mr X told the Council about. As I have explained, any investigation would not include events more than 12 months before Mr X’s complaint to the Ombudsman. So any investigation of the Council’s response to the dogs barking would only cover one or two reports in September - October 2022. That would seem a disproportionate use of the Ombudsman’s resources.
10. Also, as Mr X no longer lives there, any investigation, even if we were to uphold the complaint, could not now put matters right meaningfully for Mr X in terms of, for example, recommending monitoring of the impact of the dogs barking and/or consideration of the Council’s powers to act on this matter. Overall, investigation of this matter would seem disproportionate and unlikely to achieve anything significant for Mr X in practical terms.
11. In September 2022 Mr X emailed a Council manager with some comments about the Council’s noise and nuisance service. He did not receive a response, so emailed again a month later asking if the Council had received his previous email. The manager sent a one-word response, ‘Received’ and did not send a substantive response to Mr X’s comments. I understand why Mr X considers this dismissive and is dissatisfied. However, I am not persuaded this was a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman devoting time and public money to pursuing this point.
12. Mr X suggests the noise and nuisance team is not fit for purpose. He would like the manager to receive training and the Council to review how the team works. However, it is not the Ombudsman’s role to regulate or oversee councils’ activities generally.
13. Mr X was also dissatisfied with the Council’s handling of his formal complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. Part of the complaint is late without good enough reason to investigate it now. On other points, either there is not a significant enough injustice to Mr X to warrant investigation, or investigation would be disproportionate and unlikely to achieve anything meaningful now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman