Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council dealt with reports of noisy dogs. This is because some issues happened too long ago, and we could not add to the investigation carried out by the Council about recent matters.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will call Mr X, complains about how the Council has dealt with his reports about noisy dogs at a neighbouring property. Mr X says he has complained for 25 years about these matters and the Council have failed to act.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the council knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the council of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5))
4. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. In July 2022, Mr X complained about how the Council had dealt with his reports of noisy dogs at a neighbouring property. The Council said it had received reports from Mr X going back a number of years. It said that Mr X did report the issue in March 2022, but it had closed the case in error. The Council apologised and said it would reopen the case.
8. Shortly after it responded to Mr X’s complaint, the Council arranged an officer to visit his home to witness the noise. Upon arrival the officer was told that the noise was no longer an issue and so the case was closed again.
9. I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about how the Council has dealt with his concerns going back 25 years. This is because these matters happened too long ago and I see no good reason to exercise discretion now. Mr X could have complained about these matters at the time.
10. I will also not investigate how the Council dealt with his concerns in 2022. It accepted that it had closed its case in error, apologised and arranged for the case to be reopened and an officer to visit. This is a proportionate and appropriate response and therefore further investigation by the Ombudsman could not add to the one carried out by the Council as we could not achieve anything further for Mr X.
11. Mr X has submitted further reports to the Council after the issues with the dogs started again at the end of 2022. The Council has a live case and is currently investigating the matter. I cannot investigate this element of Mr X’s complaint because it is premature. If Mr X is dissatisfied with the Councils’ actions since it reopened the case he will first need to raise this with the Council via its complaints process.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because some matters are late and we could not add to the Councils’ investigation into more recent matters.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman