Summary: Mr X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect his household waste on the scheduled days or in a timely manner when a collection is missed. The Council’s repeated and ongoing failure to collect Mr X’s waste on the scheduled days amounts to fault causing an injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect his household waste on the scheduled days or in a timely manner when a collection is missed. He states his neighbours’ waste is collected but his is routinely missed.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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

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

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What I found

Refuse and recycling collections

5. 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.
6. The Council's practice is to make a weekly household waste collection and a fortnightly recycling collection. In September 2018 the Council introduced a new operating model. Under this model, scheduled collection days remained the same, the collection rounds/routes changed.
7. 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.
8. At the end of December 2018 collection crews began industrial action. The Council introduced a contingency plan to make one collection for all waste types each week rather than separate collections of household waste and recycling. The crews began working to rule on 29 December 2018 and the first full day of industrial action was 19 February 2019.
9. The Council moved to a fortnightly collection for all waste types in February 2019. When the industrial action ended in mid-March 2019, the Council returned to weekly household and fortnightly recycling collections.

What happened here

10. Mr X states that over the last year the Council has repeatedly failed to collect his household waste. Sometimes the Council fails to collect the waste from the whole street, sometimes it is just Mr X’s waste that is missed. Mr X states the failure to regularly collect the waste means there is rubbish all over the street where black bags have been damaged or ripped open.
11. The Council’s records show Mr X reported 14 missed collections between June 2018 and June 2019. The reports are all closed which indicates the missed collections have since been made. Some reports were closed by the next scheduled collection day, but most took longer than this, and suggest that other collections were missed.
12. As an example, the records show Mr X reported a missed collection 26 June 2018 and the Council closed this report three weeks later, on 17 July 2018. As there should have been weekly collections, this would suggest the Council also missed the next two scheduled collections.
13. In addition, Mr X reported a missed collection on 17 July 2018, and the Council closed this report on 23 July 2018. If the Council had collected the missed waste on 17 July 2018 as its records suggest, there would have been no need for Mr X to report this further missed collection.
14. Similarly, Mr X reported a missed collection on 23 October 2019, which the Council closed on 7 November 2018. This was not the next scheduled collection, which suggests a further collection was missed. The records also show that Mr X reported a missed collection on 5 November 2018 and the Council closed the report on 14 November 2018. This is curious as if the Council had collected missed waste on 7 November as the records state, it could have closed both reports that day.
15. The Council’s records also show that Mr X reported missed collections on 6, 22 and 29 March 2019. The Council closed these reports on 24 April, 7 May and 15 April 2019 respectively. This again suggests the missed collections were not collected in a timely manner, and that further collections were missed. It also raises questions about the accuracy of the Council’s records. If the Council collected missed waste on 15 April 2019, why it did not close all three reports that day?
16. As well as reporting missed collections, Mr X also complained to the Council. In his complaint of October 2018, he complained the Council had failed to collect his waste for the fourth time in six weeks. In its response, the Council referred to the new working model and explained the new routes would take time to bed in. The Council apologised for the missed collections and confirmed the waste would be collected as soon as possible.
17. Mr X was not satisfied by the Council’s response and asked for his complaint to be reviewed. Mr X complained his waste was still not being collected. He stated his street was the only one where the waste had not been collected on the scheduled day. The waste from all adjacent streets had been collected. The Council confirmed the black bags would be collected form Mr X’s street by the end of the week. It also confirmed the Depot was aware of the need to put plans in place to collect the bags from Mr X’s street each week.
18. Mr X made a further complaint in early March 2019. He complained that although the waste in his street had been collected for the first time in four weeks, his bin had not been emptied. He questioned whether the Council was discriminating against him.
19. The Council apologised for the disruption to the service caused by the industrial action. It explained it would be moving to fortnightly collections beginning on 18 February 2019. Mr X responded to advise that waste had been collected from his street, but the Council had again missed his bin.
20. As the Council still regularly fails to empty Mr X’s bin on the scheduled days, he has asked the Ombudsman to investigate. In response to my enquiries the Council states Mr X’s is one of only three properties on his street to have bins. The rest of the street has remained on sack and box collections. The Council states the depot has reported it is operationally difficult for them to maintain bin collections when over ninety percent of the street is on sack and box collections.
21. The Council states officers are able to identify any problems with the service and whether monitoring is required. It states it is paying closer attention to missed collections and will run management reports more frequently to identify problems so they can be promptly resolved.

Analysis

22. The repeated and ongoing failings in the Council’s service amount to fault.
23. The Council accepts that collections have been missed, and that there will have been delays in these missed collections being made. These missed collections are not occasional or sporadic but are frequent and have continued for at least a year.
24. The Council suggests the missed collections could be due to Mr X using bins, rather than the bag and box collections used by most of his street. But the Council agreed to provide Mr X with bins, and in doing so must have considered it possible to make bin collections on his street. The Council has confirmed that the other residents in the street with bins have not complained about missed collections. This would suggest the collection crews are able to empty the bins and should be able to routinely collect Mr X’s household waste.
25. I note that the Council did not refer to any difficulties with bin collections in its responses to Mr X’s complaints. It instead referred to the new working arrangements and the industrial action. These were generic responses which did not address the concerns Mr X was raising. I recognise the Council would have received a high volume of complaints during the industrial action but would still expect to consider and address the specific issues raised. Failure to do so amounts to fault.
26. Having identified fault, I must consider whether this has caused Mr X a significant injustice. Mr X has had to find ways to manage the uncollected waste repeatedly left at his property for weeks at a time and these difficulties have not been resolved. This has and continues to cause Mr X great frustration and annoyance. He has also been put to time and trouble in pursuing this matter.

Agreed action

27. The Council has agreed to apologise and pay Mr X £300 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties he has experienced as a result of the repeated failure to collect his household waste over an extended period of time.
28. The Council should carry out this recommendation within one month of the final decision.
29. The Council has also agreed to carry out an eight-week period of monitoring to ensure that Mr X’s waste is collected on the scheduled days.

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Final decision

30. The Council’s repeated and ongoing failure to collect Mr X’s waste on the scheduled days amounts to fault causing an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman