Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint the Council failed to take appropriate action to investigate nuisance from a local premises. Nor will we investigate his complaints the Council discriminated against him and wrongly applied its unreasonable complainant behaviour policy. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council:
• failed to properly consider his complaints of noise and other nuisance coming from a local premises;
• discriminated against him; and
• wrongly said his behaviour was unreasonable and applied contact restrictions.
2. Mr X says this has affected his mental health. He wants all the parties involved to be penalised.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (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 the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. We have previous investigated Mr X’s complaints about how the Council investigated his reports of nuisance from a local premises. We found no fault.
7. Mr X has continued to complain since then about the same issues. More recently he said the Council officers who visited the premises discriminated against him.
8. The Council responded to his complaints. It said it had installed noise recording equipment at his property several times, had made further offers which Mr X had declined and had made unannounced visits to the premises. It had found no evidence of statutory noise or other nuisance. Its actions had been investigated by the Ombudsman and the Anti-Social Behaviour Community Trigger Panel both of which found no fault. The Council said it would no longer look at the same type of issues.
9. The Council took the appropriate action to investigate Mr X’s complaints. It subsequently decided it would no longer consider the same type of complaints from him about the premises. This was a decision the Council was entitled to take and there is no evidence of fault in how it made it. We will not investigate this complaint.
10. In response to Mr X’s complaints he had been discriminated against, the Council said he had provided no specific incidents to support his accusations. It said if Mr X provided examples it would investigate these. This was an appropriate response and we will not investigate further.
11. The Council has recently invoked its unreasonable complainant behaviour policy with Mr X. It explained why it was doing this, provided a single point of contact, informed him of what it considered reasonable contact and said when it would review its decision. It provided Mr X with details of how to appeal its decision but later did not uphold this. There is no evidence of fault in the Council’s actions to warrant further investigation.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman