Overview:

Key to names used

• Miss Y The complainant

Summary

Miss Y complained about the Council’s failure to provide her with a reliable and effective assisted bin collection service. She has a disability and the Council has provided this service for a number of years. But there have been repeated issues with the service, which are still ongoing, despite her previous complaints to us and the Council’s promises to resolve these.

Finding

Fault found causing injustice and recommendations made.

Recommendations

The Council must consider the report and confirm within three months the action it has taken or proposes to take. The Council should consider the report at its full Council, Cabinet or other appropriately delegated committee of elected members and we will require evidence of this. (Local Government Act 1974, section 31(2), as amended)

To remedy the injustice identified in this report, we recommend the Council take the following action within three months of the report:

• apologise to Miss Y for its ongoing failure to provide her with a reliable and effective assisted bin collection service. We publish Guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology we have recommended;
• pay Miss Y £350 to reflect the worry and distress its failures have caused her. This is a symbolic amount based on our Guidance on remedies;
• offer Miss Y the opportunity to meet with a senior manager in the waste management team to discuss the issues with her assisted bin collection service and the action it has taken to resolve these;
• report to us on the changes it has made to resolve the issues with Miss Y’s service; and
• review service requests and complaints about assisted bin collections over the last six months. If these show there are wider problems with the way it delivers its assisted bin collection service to its residents, the Council should consider what changes can be made to improve the service.

The Council has accepted our recommendations.

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