Summary: Mrs Y complains about the Council’s handling of noise complaints. The Council’s contact with Mrs Y was, on occasion, delayed. However, there is no evidence of any other procedural fault in the Council’s investigation of the noise. The apology already offered by the Council for the delay is proportionate and we do not recommend any further remedy.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I will call Mrs Y, complains about how the Council has dealt with her complaints about noise nuisance starting in March 2020. In particular, Mrs Y says the Council:
1. failed to properly record the noise she reported
2. did not visit within the appropriate timescales on five occasions
3. ignored her phone calls and voicemail messages
4. accused Mrs Y of having health conditions making her sensitive to noise
5. delayed when responding to her complaint
2. Mrs Y says the Council’s inaction has caused significant injustice because the noise impacts on her health and her ability to sleep.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether an organisation’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), 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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How I considered this complaint

5. During my investigation I discussed the complaint with Mrs Y and considered any information she provided.
6. I made enquiries of the Council and considered its response, which included the contemporaneous files.
7. Mrs Y 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

Noise nuisance and anti-social behaviour

8. Councils must look into complaints about noise that could be a statutory nuisance (covered by the Environmental Protection Act 1990). The noise complained about might be loud music, barking dogs, noisy neighbours, pubs or noise from industrial, trade or business premises.
9. For a noise to count as a 'statutory nuisance' it must do one of the following:
• Unreasonably and substantially interfere with the use or enjoyment of a home or other premises
• Injure health or be likely to injure health
10. Generally, the statutory nuisance will need to be witnessed by an officer who will come to an independent judgement. The process of determining what level of noise constitutes a nuisance can be subjective. The level of noise, its length, timing and location may be taken into consideration in deciding whether a nuisance has occurred.
11. If an officer decides a statutory nuisance is happening, or will happen in the future, councils must serve an abatement notice. This requires whoever is responsible to stop or restrict the noise. If someone does not comply with an abatement notice they can be prosecuted and fined.
12. Councils have separate powers under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act (2014) to deal with anti-social noise. The Act also introduced a mechanism for alleged ASB victims to request a review of the handling of their case by the ‘relevant bodies’. This is commonly known as the ‘Community Trigger’.
13. The maximum threshold allowed by the statutory guidance is that a complainant has made three separate reports of ASB to any of the relevant bodies in the previous six months, with each individual report being made within one month of the incident in question. The complainant must also request the review within six months of their report.
14. Upon accepting a review request, the bodies should discuss the case together and share information. They should consider any action they have previously taken, and whether they require any further information, and propose a response. If they consider there is further work to be done, they should make recommendations and agree an action plan. They should then share the outcome of the review with the complainant.

Principles of Good Administrative Practice

15. In 2018 we published a guidance document setting out the standards we expect from bodies in jurisdiction “Principles of Good Administrative Practice”. This includes:
• following the law and taking the rights of those concerned into account;
• following the organisation’s policy and guidance;
• taking reasonable, timely decisions, based on all relevant considerations; and
• explaining and responding to any delays proactively.
16. In May 2020 we issued an addendum in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: “Good Administrative Practice during the response to Covid 19”. This made clear we would hold councils to similar standards even during crisis working. Of relevance to this case, we said:
• basic record keeping is vital during crisis working. There should always be a clear audit trail of how and why decisions were made, particularly summarising key reasons for departing from normal practice
• where re-deploying back-office resources to the frontline, care should be taken that this does not undermine the organisation’s ability to maintain essential operations.

Complaints a) and b)

17. Mrs Y reports problems with her next-door neighbours ranging from criminal activities, anti-social behaviour to noise nuisance. In recent years she has reported concerns to the relevant bodies, including the Council and the Police, but considers that nothing is done to resolve the issues. Some of the alleged problems are of a criminal nature which the LGSCO has no jurisdiction to investigate. Instead, this investigation is focussed on the Council’s consideration of the noise and ASB problems reported by Mrs Y.
18. In May 2020, and shortly after Mrs Y had complained about noise, the Council sent diary sheets for her to enter the date, time and type of noise heard. The Council also wrote to Mrs Y’s neighbour to notify them that noise from their property had been complained about. Ms Y returned the diary sheets on 29 May 2020.
19. Based on the information in the diary sheets, the Council decided to place Ms Y’s address onto a list for ‘rapid response’ out-of-hours visits for officers to witness the alleged noise first-hand. Mrs Y was advised to contact the team whenever she heard the noise, either during night or day. The Council’s records show that officers visited Mrs Y’s home four times between June and September 2020. During these visits both Mrs Y and her husband were present and stated they could hear the noise which was continuous in nature. However, the records show the officers in attendance could not hear the noise.
20. Mrs Y continued to report noise nuisance. In line with its policy, the Council arranged in August 2020 to install noise monitoring equipment in Mrs Y’s upstairs bedroom where she reported the noise was at its loudest. The Council’s records show the officer collected the equipment six days later. After listening to the recordings, which totalled three hours, the officer noted:

“… levels generally below criteria for government NANR45 for low frequency…generally levels very low (due to high spec glazing for airport) advised introduction of white noise or radio on low volume to increase levels within property to reduce hearing sensitivity. No further action for this recording”

21. The Council communicated the outcome of its investigation to Mrs Y, but she continued to make reports about noise and question the accuracy of the recordings. In response, the Council says it is satisfied the diary sheets completed by Mrs Y corresponded with the noises heard on the recording. According to the Council, this proves the equipment was installed correctly and fully functioning. Furthermore, Mrs Y has also raised concerns about the Council’s method of recording. The records show the Council knew the alleged noise was low-frequency. It therefore arranged to install a microphone with hi-sensitivity used especially to detect low noises. The Council has explained:

“As the noise reported was low level possible low frequency the recordings were made using a hi sensitivity (low noise) microphone… as part of the procedure for setting up equipment the installing officer would have recorded a commentary – this is to enable the officer to check that the recording device is recording correctly.”

“The instrument has a flat frequency response down to 20 Hz. The recorded signals were replayed into a frequency analyser to determine levels in individual octave bands to assess the low frequency components. The 1/3 octave band levels were compared with the criteria provided in NANR45 (Procedure for the assessment of low frequency noise complaints) and were generally below these (excepting some which were attributable to an aircraft fly over). It was noted that internal noise levels were otherwise very low due to the installation of the Airport insulation scheme”

22. As matters progressed, Mrs Y reported several incidences of ASB and activated the community trigger. The Council collected information from a number of sources including Mrs Y, the Police and the Council’s Environmental Services department. Following this, a panel meeting happened on 9 June 2021 to discuss Mrs Y’s case and review the involvement of services to date. The aim of the panel is to decide whether the services involved in Mrs Y’s case have acted in a reasonable and timely way.
23. The panel decided that all agencies involved in Mrs Y’s case had responded in accordance with the relevant processes and policies and there was no evidence of service failure. The Council communicated its decision to Mrs Y in a letter dated 20 August 2021. Mrs Y has not raised any concerns about how this decision was reached.
24. Based on the evidence seen, I find no evidence of procedural fault in the methods used by the Council to investigate the noise reported by Ms Y between 2020 and 2022. Therefore, I have no basis to challenge the Council’s professional judgment that the noise reported by Mrs Y does not amount to a statutory nuisance. In any event, the Council has recently offered to install the equipment again to resolve any uncertainty Mrs Y may have about its functionality.

Complaints c) d) and e)

25. I have considered these complaints together as they concern the Council’s communication with Mrs Y about the noise complaints. The Council has accepted that it did not always respond to Mrs Y in line with its usual service standards. In particular, the Council says it should have responded to the first complaint made by Mrs Y on 8 April 2020 within five working days, but the response instead arrived after eleven working days. In mitigation, the Council says:

“It should be noted that this was at the start of the first lockdown during the Covid pandemic and there was severe interruption to the service which included diverting officers to infectious disease control functions, provision of a temporary mortuary, loss of staff due to shielding, reshaping the service response to safeguard citizens and staff from the spread of coronavirus by initially suspending face-to-face visits an general disruption due to IT issues associated with the changing work environment from office to home working”.

26. The Council also accepts that it did not respond to every call made by Mrs Y and did not keep records of all contact and voicemail messages received.
27. We acknowledge the Council faced unprecedented pressure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however its statutory duties remained. The Council’s delay in taking action to investigate Mrs Y’s noise complaint is fault. However, in my view, the delay was not significant and had no impact on the eventual outcome of the investigation. The apology already offered by the Council is a sufficient remedy.
28. Mrs Y also complains an officer acted unprofessionally when he suggested that Mrs Y may have hearing problems. I have reviewed the correspondence in question. The Council did recommend that Mrs Y may wish to speak with her GP about possible hearing problems. Given the nature of the low-frequency noise being complained about, and that Mrs Y could hear it constantly, I do not consider it was an unreasonable suggestion for the Council to make. Furthermore, when looking at the correspondence in the wider context, it is clear the Council was trying to support Mrs Y rather than obstruct any investigation.
29. Finally, Mrs Y says the Council failed to respond to her complaint and only did so when the LGSCO intervened. Although Mrs Y has submitted many service requests to the Council, I have seen no evidence that she submitted a corporate complaint. We referred the complaint to the Council when Mrs Y approached the LGSCO, and the Council responded accordingly. In the absence of any evidence showing a complaint submitted to the Council by Mrs Y before July 2021, I do not find fault here.

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Final decision

30. We have completed our investigation with a finding of fault causing no significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman