Birmingham City Council (18 017 756)

Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 12 Jul 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling on the scheduled days, or in a timely manner when collections are missed. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mrs X’s household waste and recycling amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mrs X an injustice.

The complaint

  1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling on the scheduled days, or in a timely manner when collections are missed.
  2. Mrs X also complains the Council has failed to adequately respond to her complaint or address the problem.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
  2. If we are satisfied with a council’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

  1. As part of the investigation, I have:
    • considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mrs X;
    • made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
    • discussed the issues with Mrs X;
    • sent a statement setting out my draft decision to Mrs X and the Council and invited their comments.

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What I found

Refuse and recycling collections

  1. Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to collect household waste and recycling from properties in its area. The collections do not have to be weekly and councils can decide the type of bins or boxes people must use.
  2. The Council's practice is to make a weekly household waste collection and a fortnightly recycling collection.
  3. The Council provides an assisted collection service for people who are unable to move their bins and boxes due to a disability or age. The Council should collect the bins from the storage point and return them to the same point.
  4. When a missed collection is reported to the Council, the Depot will ask the crew to return to complete the round as soon as possible. When the collection is complete, the Council closes the report.

What happened here

  1. Mrs X receives assisted collections. She complains that for over 12 months, the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling, despite colleting her neighbours’ waste.
  2. The Council’s records show Mrs X has reported 4 missed household waste collections and 5 missed recycling collections since July 2018. The reports are all closed which indicates the missed collections have since been made. However, the dates these reports were closed do not suggest collections were made in a timely manner or on the next scheduled collection day. The records also suggest that other collections were also missed.
  3. For example, Mrs X reported missed a household waste collection on 19 September 2018, and the Council closed this report 37 days later on 26 October 2018. As there should have been a weekly collection, this would suggest the collections scheduled for 17 and 24 September, and 2, 8 and 15 October 2018 were also missed. If the Council had collected Mrs X’s household waste as scheduled on these days, it would have been able to close the report sooner.
  4. There are similar anomalies in the records for Mrs X’s recycling. Mrs X reported a missed recycling collection on 15 October 2018, and the Council closed this report 38 days later on 22 November 2018. At this time the Council was collecting recycling on a fortnightly basis, so there should have been collections on 29 October, and 12 November 2018. Again, if the Council had made these collections as scheduled, it could have closed the reports sooner.
  5. In addition to reporting missed collections, Mrs X also complained to the Council. In her complaint of 10 September 2018 Mrs X reported a further missed collection and expressed frustration at the number of times the Council had failed to collect her household waste and recycling. She asked the Council to ensure it was collected on the scheduled days. The Council apologised for the missed collections and confirmed further collections had been made and the excess waste removed. It also confirmed it would remind the crews of Mrs X’s assisted collections.
  6. Mrs X made a further complaint in January 2019. She reported that her recycling had been collected for the first time in six weeks, but her household waste had not been collected. Mrs X complained her neighbours’ waste had been collected, but hers had been left again. The Council’s response advised that as a result of the industrial action, the Council was moving to fortnightly collections. It asked her to put her household waste and recycling out on the day her recycling is usually collected.
  7. Mrs X is unhappy the Council’s response did not address her concerns about her assisted collections being missed and has asked the Ombudsman to investigate. Mrs X states the collections are now more regular, but she is concerned about whether the improvement will last.
  8. In response to my enquiries the Council is unable to explain why Mrs X’s collections were missed between July and September 2018. It states the missed collections between October 2018 and March 2019 can be attributed to pre- industrial action “work to rule” and industrial action itself.
  9. The Council states officers can identify any problems and if monitoring is required. It states it is now paying closer attention to missed collections, including missed assisted collections. And will run management reports on a more frequent basis to identify problems so they can be promptly resolved.

Analysis

  1. It is clear from the documentation I have received that there have been repeated failings in the Council’s service which amount to fault.
  2. The Council accepts that collections have been missed, and that there will have been delays in these missed collections being made. Its records of missed collections appear to be inaccurate or incomplete to the extent I do not consider them to be a reliable indication of when collections were missed, or household waste and recycling were collected from Mrs X’s property.
  3. The operational difficulties and industrial action in late 2018 and early 2019, will inevitably have affected services. But this does not explain why Mrs X’s household waste and recycling were not being collected on the scheduled days prior to that. It is also unclear why, if details of assisted collections appear on mobile technology within the collection vehicles and are added to the crew packs, Mrs X’s waste was missed when the rest of the street was collected.
  4. I also consider there to be fault in the way the Council has responded to Mrs X’s complaints. Mrs X raised specific concerns about her assisted collections being missed when the rest of the street’s waste was collected. The Council’s response does not address this but is instead a generic statement about the changes in working arrangements. I recognise the Council will have received a high volume of complaints during the industrial action but would still expect the Council to address the issues raised in these complaints.
  5. Having identified fault, I must consider whether this has caused Mrs X an injustice. Mrs X has had to find ways to manage the uncollected waste and recycling left at her property for several weeks at a time. She has experienced frustration and disappointment both with the missed collection, and with Council’s failure to resolve the problem. Mrs X has also been put to unnecessary time and trouble in trying to resolve this matter.

Agreed action

  1. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X and pays her £200 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the repeated failure to make regular household waste or recycling collections has caused.
  2. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision.
  3. The Council has also agreed to carry out a period of monitoring to ensure Mrs X’s household waste and recycling are collected on the scheduled days. This monitoring should begin within one month of the final decision and continue for a period of eight weeks.

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Final decision

  1. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mrs X’s household waste and recycling amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mrs X an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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