Summary: we found the Council repeatedly missed bin collections from Ms X’s home and this was service failure. As Ms X has a disability, and is eligible for assisted collections, this had a significant impact on her. She had the inconvenience and frustration of reporting missed collections over a long period and making a complaint to secure some improvement in the service.

The complaint

1. Ms X has an assisted collection for household refuse and recycling due to her disability. She complained the Council failed to:

1. properly collect her general and recycling waste for several months; and

2. resolve the matter despite her frequent reports of missed collections and complaints.

She would like the Council to provide an efficient and reliable service, apologise for the past service failure and pay a financial remedy to recognise the impact on her.

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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. Service failure can happen when an organisation fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed policy or process, or bad faith by an organisation to say service failure (fault) has occurred. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1), as amended)
3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. A complaint is late 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)
5. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.

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What I have and have not investigated

6. Ms X says there have been persistent problems with missed bin collections since she moved to the area in 2020. She complained to us in October 2023.
7. I decided to investigate Ms X’s complaint about the service provided since 13 October 2022 which is 12 months before she complained to us. I have not investigated the earlier period because there was no good reason for the delay in bringing the complaint to us.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I have spoken to Ms X and considered all the information she provided.
9. I considered the Council’s response to my enquiries which includes its records of missed collections Ms X has reported since October 2022. I also looked at information on the Council’s website about the waste collection service.
10. Miss X 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

Relevant law

11. Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to collect household waste and recycling from properties in their area. The collections do not have to be weekly and councils can decide the type of bins or boxes people must use.

Assisted collections

12. Councils normally expect people to move their bins to the kerbside at their property to allow them to be easily collected. However, a council may decide to provide an assisted collection to someone who is unable to move their bins due to a disability. Under an assisted collection, the crew enters the person’s property, such as their garden or driveway, to collect the bins and then return them to their storage place after they are emptied.

What happened

13. The Council agreed to provide Ms X with an assisted collection. She cannot move her wheelie bins due to a disability. The bins are stored in a side passage behind a locked gate. On the evening before the collection day, someone moves them for Ms X and leaves them outside the gate. The collection crew then has to carry the bagged waste up some steps to street level.
14. Recycling and household waste are collected on alternate weeks. Glass and garden waste were collected one week and general household refuse and cardboard on the other week. All the waste is stored in wheelie bins. The Council provided Ms X with bags to place in the wheelie bins to make it easier for the crew to carry the waste up to street level.
15. Ms X says there has never been a problem with the garden waste and glass collections. The crew always manage to pull the bins up the steps to empty them. But there have been recurring issues with the household refuse and cardboard collection. Sometimes the bins have been left in a position where they block her front door and access to her home. On other occasions, the collection has been missed or only some of the bagged waste has been collected. She says she has found maggots in the bins and strong odours when the bins are not emptied regularly.
16. Ms X reported the missed collections by completing an online form or by telephoning the service.
17. I asked the Council for a table listing all the missed or incomplete collections Ms X reported between October 2022 and October 2023. This shows there were 13 reports of missed or incomplete collections in this 12 month period.
18. In late February 2023 Ms X used the complaints procedure to register her concern about the repeated missed collections. She said she had been told to use orange bags and place them in the wheelie bins. But she had run out of bags and the Council failed to deliver more. An officer in the waste and recycling service replied at the first stage of the Council’s complaints procedure in early March. He apologised for any inconvenience caused and said he had issued instructions to the crew to empty Ms X’s bins.
19. Ms X was not satisfied with this response so she pursued her complaint to the next stage of the complaints procedure in early March 2023. She said the crew were given the same instructions in the summer of 2022 but had ignored them. She therefore had no confidence that issuing the same instructions now would resolve matters. She said she was being denied fair and equal access to the waste collection service as a person with a disability.
20. A senior manager replied to the Stage Two complaint in March. She apologised to Ms X for the inconvenience caused by the missed collections. She said that due to an error, only one of Ms X’s bins had been registered for assisted collection when it should have automatically applied to all bins. This error had been corrected and she expected all the bins to be emptied on the following Friday’s collection. She asked Ms X to contact her if the service did not improve. She also informed Ms X of her right to complain to us if she was not satisfied with the final response.
21. The Council’s table shows Ms X reported a further six missed or incomplete bin collections in the seven months following the Stage Two response. In one report, Ms X said the recycling had not been collected for one month.
22. The table included any comments from the collection crew for each reported missed collection. In one case the crew commented that the bin was “contaminated” because it was full of bags. Ms X says she had been told to put waste in orange bags inside the bins to make it easier for the crew to carry waste up the steps. In another case, the crew said the bins were overfilled which made them too heavy to get up the steps. For the other eleven reported missed collections, the crew did not make any comments or give a reason.
23. Following Ms X’s further reports of missed collections, a manager from the Council’s waste and recycling team visited in mid-October 2023. He spoke to Mr X and apologised for the impact of the missed collections.
24. The Council says it has been monitoring the service since 20 October 2023. The usual monitoring period is between 30 and 60 days.  However, it has continued to monitor in this case. It says it has not received any further reports of missed collections since mid-October 2023 which suggests the service has improved.
25. When I spoke to Ms X in mid-January 2024, she told me the service had improved since the manager’s visit. But she says there have been short-term improvements in the service in the past which are not sustained. She says the service deteriorates whenever there is a change of manager.
26. She says the Council has not apologised for the poor service. It has not offered a financial remedy to recognise the inconvenience and the time she has spent reporting frequent missed collections and making the complaint.
27. She told me the Council has now provided smaller bins to make it easier for the crew to pull them up the steps.

My analysis

28. Occasionally there will be circumstances, such as extreme weather, which prevent refuse crews from doing a collection. However, in this case, it is clear that the missed collections were originally caused by an error in inputting data on the system. And despite the Council taking steps to correct this error when Ms X complained in early 2023, the problem was not resolved because she reported several more missed collections between March and October 2023. The failure to provide an adequate and reliable service over such a long time was fault. It caused Ms X distress, frustration and inconvenience because she had to repeatedly report missed collections. As someone with a disability, she depended on assisted collections and the missed collections had a greater impact on her.
29. A manager apologised to Ms X when she replied to the Stage Two complaint in March 2023. But, since then, Ms X has had to report several more missed collections. So I consider this further service failure merits another apology.
30. The Council told us it has continued to monitor the collections from Ms X’s property since October 2023. It has received no reports of missed collections since mid-October. This indicates an improvement in the service which has been sustained for five months now.
31. On a broader note, we have not received complaints recently from other residents in the Council’s area about missed bin collections. So we are not aware of a systemic or widespread problem which affects other residents.

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Agreed action

32. Within one month of the final decision, the Council has agreed to:
• apologise to Ms X for the further service failure that occurred after the previous apology was made in March 2023 (following the guidance we have issued – see paragraph 6);
• make a symbolic payment of £150 to Ms X for the inconvenience and frustration this has caused;
• flag the property on the refuse crew’s in cab system and arrange for the service manager to continue monitoring the service.
33. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

34. I have completed the investigation and found there was service failure which is fault. The Council has agreed to provide Ms X with a suitable remedy for the injustice caused.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman