Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms Q’s complaint about the Council’s investigation of its noise officers’ actions. This is because we are unlikely to find fault. And it is unlikely we could add to the Council’s own investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I have called Ms Q, complained about the Council’s investigation of its noise officers. She said they visited following a complaint about her Buddhist prayer wheel and reported her to the Police as a possible terror threat. Ms Q believes the Council should have done more to investigate her concerns.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information Ms Q provided. I considered the information the Council provided. I considered Ms Q’s response to a draft of this decision.

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What I found

What happened

4. Ms Q complained to the Council about two unnamed noise officers. She said they visited after the Council received a complaint about her small Buddhist prayer wheel which sits on her windowsill. She said the officers had been watching her flat and later reported her to the Police saying she might be a terror threat.
5. The Council investigated Ms Q’s complaint. It told her it could not help her further because it did not know who the officers were. It said it could not find any calls about the matter or a noise complaint about it. It said it had also spoken to the local Police officer who could not help.
6. In response to a draft of this decision, Ms Q provided a copy of an email she received from a Police officer saying council officers contacted them about her prayer wheel. Ms Q removed the Police officer’s name from the email.

Assessment

7. The Council checked its records and contacted the local Police officer about Ms Q’s concerns. It is open to Ms Q to give the Council the name of the Police officer who emailed her so it can speak to the officer. But it is unlikely we would find fault with the investigation the Council has done using the information available to it at the time.
8. In addition, as the Council has no records of what happened and no way of identifying who the officers were, it is unlikely we could add to the Council’s own investigation.
9. So for these reasons, we will not investigate this complaint.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint for the reasons given in the Assessment.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman