Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council not dealing with his noise complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council did not deal with his noise complaint about his neighbour.
2. Mr X said the Council wrongly blamed him for his neighbour’s behaviour and accused him of threatening his neighbour.
3. Mr X also said the Council blocked him from contacting it.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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, 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

5. I considered information provided by Mr X.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mr X contacted the Council about noise from his neighbour’s property.
8. The Council received Mr X’s email over 100 times in an hour. It says that despite warning Mr X not to continue sending it, he did not stop. The Council therefore blocked his email address.
9. The Council’s approach is in line with relevant policies and processes and there is not enough evidence of fault in its handling of Mr X’s report to warrant an investigation. As the Council has already agreed to investigate the noise complaint, it is also unlikely we could achieve significantly more for Mr X. Before councils can take formal action, they must have evidence to show any noise amounts to a nuisance and will usually want to witness the noise in person. They cannot take action immediately on the basis of an email and without properly investigating the issue first.
10. I have considered the other parts of Mr X’s complaint set out above, but these points are peripheral to the main point issue concerning the handling of Mr X’s noise complaint and did not themselves cause significant enough injustice to warrant an investigation.

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Final decision

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

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman