Summary: Miss F complains the Council has failed to act on her reports of anti-social behaviour. We found no fault in the way the Council dealt with Miss F’s reports of anti-social behaviour. There was fault in complaint handling which caused Miss F time and trouble. The Council has agreed make a symbolic payment to Miss F to remedy that injustice.

The complaint

1. Miss F complains the Council has failed to act on her reports of antisocial behaviour by her neighbours and did not consider the evidence she provided. She also complains that it referred her children to social care. This has caused her and her children significant distress and anxiety.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. 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)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

5. I am investigating the period June 2022 to March 2024. The law says we cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Miss F first came to the Ombudsman in November 2023 so I have exercised my discretion to investigate events from June 2022, rather than November 2022.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I spoke to Miss F about her complaint and considered the information he sent and the Council’s response to my enquiries.
7. Miss F and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Anti-social behaviour

8. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 gave councils a general duty to take action to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB), which is defined as conduct:
• That has caused, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm, or distress to any person.
• Capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation of residential premises.
• Capable of causing housing related nuisance or annoyance to any person.
9. Dudley’s ASB policy says some behaviour, such as children playing, everyday noises and minor disputes or actions the Council cannot reasonably control, such as stares and dirty looks, are not considered to be anti-social behaviour.
10. Councils have various powers to deal with ASB including a power to issue community protection notices (CPN). Councils will usually send a warning letter before issuing a CPN. Failure to comply with a CPN is an offence, which can lead to prosecution and a fine. Councils may also issue “good neighbour agreements” (GNA). These are voluntary agreements which clarify acceptable behaviour and highlight the consequences of unacceptable behaviour.
11. If a person reports alleged ASB, the Council’s policy says it will contact the person reporting the incidents and investigate where necessary. The Council will close the case when (amongst other things):
• It has reached an agreed solution and successfully resolved the incident.
• It has completed an investigation into the case and exhausted all viable solutions.
• Offered mediation but this has been declined by the complainant.
• Engagement is lost, and the complainant no longer responds to its requests.

The Council’s complaint procedure

12. The Council has a two-stage complaint procedure. At both stages it aims to respond within 10 working days. A person can ask for a review at stage two if they can show the decision was based on a factual error, or that the Council has not considered a significant piece of evidence, or they have new evidence.

What happened

13. I have summarised the key events; this is not meant to be a detailed description of everything that happened.
14. Miss F is a council tenant. In June 2022, Miss F asked the Council about moving to a different property. This was because of the behaviour of the neighbours on both sides of her home.
15. Miss F’s concerns were referred to the Council’s ASB team who opened a case about Neighbour 1 and visited Miss F. Miss F felt targeted and complained of dog barking, verbal abuse, staring and intimidation, and children kicking footballs at her car. She said this had been going on for years and she had installed CCTV cameras and contacted the police. Miss F said the situation was causing her to have panic attacks and she had been prescribed anti-depressants. A few days later, a second case was opened against Neighbour 2 following an incident reported by Miss F. The Council allocated a different ASB officer to each case.
16. The Council asked Miss F to send in any evidence of the neighbours’ behaviour so she began sending videos from her cameras and she sent a list of incidents that had occurred since 2020. The Council also wrote to other residents asking if they had witnessed any incidents or barking and spoke to the police.
17. The Council arranged to visit the neighbours; the date eventually agreed upon was 12 July. I have seen an email from the Council to Miss F on 28 June advising it would be visiting the neighbours on 11 July. The Council says it emailed again on 4 July advising this had been rescheduled but I have not seen that email.
18. A further ASB case was opened as one of the neighbours reported an incident by Miss F’s mother.
19. The Council and police visited Miss F and both neighbours separately on 12 July. It was agreed that a GNA should be put in place. This was done on 28 September.
20. Miss F was continuing to report incidents and send in evidence to the Council. The Council emailed her on 10 October to say that it had reviewed what she had sent but it was not evidence that the GNA had been breached.
21. Miss F made a formal complaint about the Council’s decision on 12 October. She continued to report incidents, in particular of barking. The environmental health team became involved in relation to the neighbours’ dogs.
22. The Council sent a stage one complaint response on 12 December. It apologised for any poor communication but did not uphold her complaint. The Council said the evidence Miss F had sent did not meet the threshold for legal intervention but a GNA had been put in place. Miss F did not ask for her complaint to be escalated to stage two.
23. The next day the Council sent letters warning of breaches of the GNA to Miss F and the neighbours.
24. I have seen that the Council held internal discussions, met with the police and contacted an external consultant about how to deal with the case. It also visited Miss F and carried out a “door-knocking exercise” in the street. On 14 February 2023 the Council issued CPN warning letters to the neighbours.
25. The Council wrote to Miss F saying it would visit her “to discuss complaints received concerning her behaviour”. An ASB officer visited Miss F on 2 March. I have not seen a note of this meeting but Miss F’s account is that it was distressing and caused her to have a breakdown. Following the visit the Council made a referral to adult safeguarding; this was later passed to children’s safeguarding.
26. On 9 March 2023, Miss F made a formal complaint. She said the GNA warning letter she had received in December 2022 had made her ill, the recent letter advising of the visit had caused her anxiety and the visit had been distressing.
27. The Council met with Miss F and the police on 27 March to review the evidence she had sent. It then emailed her saying the evidence did not show breaches of the GNA. But I have seen no evidence of a formal response to her complaint.
28. The Council emailed Miss F on 20 April. It said it had spoken to Neighbour 1; the dog had been rehomed and the neighbour’s camera would be removed. The Council would close the case if it did not hear from Miss F in seven days. Miss F replied that it was a waste of time reporting incidents as the Council had decided they were not ASB. The case against Neighbour 1 was closed on 4 May.
29. The case against Neighbour 2 remained ongoing and Miss F continued to send diaries logging incidents of barking.
30. On 20 September, the Council told Miss F it was closing the case against Neighbour 2 as there had been only 44 minutes of barking over a two-week period.
31. Miss F came to the Ombudsman in November but it was too soon for us to investigate as she had not yet completed the Council’s complaint procedure. The Council told us it would issue a stage two response to Miss F’s complaint.
32. In December a new ASB case was opened against Neighbour 2 in relation to barking. The Council wrote to Miss F about this on 13 December.
33. Miss F again sent in diary sheets and videos recording barking and the Council visited the street to witness any barking, including after 11pm. It also spoke to Neighbour 2 and other residents.
34. The Council emailed Miss F on 11 March 2024 and called her on 15 March. When it received no response from her it closed the case on 22 March 2024.
35. It then issued a stage two complaint response on 24 April. This said the case had been closed because the evidence did not demonstrate nuisance was occurring and there was not enough evidence to issue a CPN.

My findings

36. I appreciate that Miss F finds her neighbours’ actions distressing. But it is not the Ombudsman's role to decide whether there has been ASB and if so what actions to take to resolve it. That is the Council's role. My role is to consider whether there was administrative fault in the way the Council decided whether there had been ASB and what action to take. If the Council considers this properly, I cannot find fault just because a complainant disagrees with the outcome.
37. I find there was no fault in the way the Council dealt with Miss F’s reports of ASB.
38. There is no evidence the Council failed to act and no evidence it did not consider the evidence she sent. I have seen that the Council viewed her videos and considered her diary sheets. It visited the street to witness barking, liaised with the police, held professionals’ meetings to discuss the issues, spoke to Miss F, the neighbours and other residents and sought external expert advice. It asked Miss F’s neighbours to sign a GNA.
39. In addition, environmental health were involved and the housing team considered whether Miss F’s band could be changed and whether she could move properties.
40. The Council decided to issue GNA and CPN warning letters but it also decided at other times there had been no breaches of the GNA and that there was insufficient evidence to issue a CPN. These are decisions it was entitled to take and I have seen no evidence of fault in the way they were made.
41. There is no fault in its decision to make a safeguarding referral; it is required to do this if it considers a person may be at risk of harm.
42. I have not seen evidence of a late cancellation of a visit to Miss F’s. The Council emailed her on 28 June 2022 to say it was visiting the neighbour on 11 July 2022. That visit was then re-arranged to 12 July. The Council also visited Miss F on 12 July though I have not seen any emails to her about this. In any case, the Council apologised for any poor communications in its December 2022 complaint response. That is an appropriate and proportionate remedy for any injustice caused to Miss F by any fault in the meeting arrangements.
43. There was fault in complaint handling. Miss F made a formal complaint on 9 March 2023. Although the Council met with her after this it did not send a formal stage one complaint response. This is fault which caused Miss F time and trouble, because when she came to the Ombudsman in November 2023, we were unable to investigate as the complaint process had not been completed. The Council then did not send a further complaint response until April 2024.
44. When we have evidence of fault causing injustice, we will seek a remedy for that injustice which aims to put the complainant back in the position they would have been in if nothing had gone wrong. When this is not possible, we will normally consider asking for a symbolic payment to acknowledge the avoidable distress caused. But our remedies are not intended to be punitive and we do not award compensation in the way that a court might. Our guidance says that if fault has caused a person time and trouble a moderate, symbolic payment may be appropriate to remedy this.

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Agreed action

45. Within a month of my final decision, the Council has agreed to pay Miss F £200 to remedy the time and trouble caused by fault in complaint handling.
46. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

47. There was fault by the Council. The actions the Council has agreed to take remedy the injustice caused. I have completed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman