The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s actions in sending Ms X a letter advising her it had received a complaint about noise nuisance from dog barking. This is because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council sufficient to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Ms X complains she received a factually incorrect letter from the Council about noise nuisance from dog barking and that it is taking the public’s word as truth and is effectively working from the presumption of guilt.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant, including the Council’s response to the complaint.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Having received a complaint about dog barking at the address it had for Ms X, the Council sent her a letter explaining this. It advised that at the time of writing it had no independent evidence to support the allegation.
In response to Ms X’s complaint about receiving the letter, the Council explained it had a duty to investigate noise complaints and had sent its standard letter so that Ms X was informed of the complaint received. It did not uphold her complaint and advised that as it had received no further evidence it had closed its case regarding the alleged dog barking.
While Ms X may be disappointed with the outcome of her complaint to the Council, we do not investigate every complaint we receive, and we will not investigate where there is insufficient evidence of fault to warrant an investigation. The Council received a complaint about dog barking and in accordance with its normal procedures sent Ms X a letter about the allegation. It made clear in that letter that the allegation had not been confirmed.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council sufficient to warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman