Birmingham City Council (19 002 667)

Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 14 Oct 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

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 failure to make regular household waste collections since October 2018, amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mr X 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 since October 2018.

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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 information provided by Mr X;
    • made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
    • discussed the issues with Mr X; and
    • 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

  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. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

  1. Mr X complains that since the Council made changes to the collection rounds in October 2018 it has routinely failed to collect his household waste. He states his recycling is collected as scheduled, but his, and his neighbour’s household waste is missed.
  2. Mr X states has he reported missed collections every week, but the service has not improved. He complains the waste is only collected once every five or six weeks, by which time the street is littered with bin bags. Mr X states he has had to take his uncollected waste to the tip, but as many of his neighbours cannot do this, bags of waste accumulate in the street.
  3. The Council’s records show Ms X reported 30 missed household waste collections over the last 12 months. Save for the most recent reports, the reports are all closed which indicates the missed collections have since been made. Mr X disputes this.
  4. The dates the reports were closed suggest that if collections were made, they were not completed in a timely manner or on the next scheduled collection day. There are also inconsistencies in the dates the reports were closed. For example, Mr X reported missed collections on 1, 8 and 15 November 2018 and these reports were closed 29 November, 4 and 17 December 2018 respectively. Had the Council collected the missed waste on 29 November 2018, it would have been able to close all three reports that day.
  5. The Council states there may be a delay between the missed collections being made and the report being closed, so it should not be assumed that other collections were missed. But it has not provided evidence of the dates the missed collections were made where this is different to the date the reports were closed.
  6. In addition to reporting the missed collections, Mr X also complained to the Council. Mr X complained about the number of missed collections he had reported, without any improvement in the service. He told the Council he and his neighbours had not had regular collections for months while residents on the other side of the street had their bins emptied as scheduled.
  7. The Council’s response said the missed collections were due to the industrial action, and that the Council had put a plan in place to minimise the disruption. Mr X was not satisfied with this explanation and asked for his complaint to be reviewed. He was unhappy that he was having to arrange to dispose of the waste himself when properties on the other side of the street had their waste collected. Mr X did not accept the ongoing missed collections were due to the industrial action as this ended some time ago. He felt he was paying for a service he was not receiving and that he should receive a refund of his council tax. In response, the Council confirmed it had escalated the matter to the Service manager.
  8. As Mr X was not satisfied with the Council’s response, he has asked the Ombudsman to investigate his complaint. In response to my enquiries the Council states the collection day for a stretch of properties, including Mr X’s was changed in error last year. The Council believes this is what caused the missed collections. The recycling collection day remained the same, and only three collections have been missed.
  9. The collection crews did not alert their manager to the fact bins were not being presented on the new collection day, so the problem was not identified. The Council states this error is being corrected and the route will return to its usual collection day. The Council’s response confirmed Mr X’s waste had been collected that week.
  10. The Council states that reports of missed collections are now reported to a senior officer on a daily basis and if they can be picked up within two days the Council will collect. If not, they will be picked up as soon as possible, but that may be the following week.
  11. The Council acknowledges Mr X’s collections have been badly disrupted and recognises he would not have been satisfied with its responses to his complaints.

Analysis

  1. It is clear from the information available that there have been repeated failings in the Council’s service which amount to fault. Errors in the Council’s working arrangements mean Mr X has not received regular household waste collections since October 2018.
  2. The Council’s records of Mr X’s reported missed collections, when the collections were subsequently made, and the reports closed are incomplete and inconsistent. It is concerning that the Council appears to have closed the reports of missed collections when the waste had not been collected.
  3. In addition, I would have expected such a high number of reported missed collections to have alerted the Council to a potential problem. This should in turn have prompted an investigation to identify and resolve the issue. The Council states reports of missed collection are now referred to a senior officer daily, and I recognise this should have a positive effect in identifying and resolving issues. But I consider the Council should have done more to address Mr X’s repeated missed collections sooner.
  4. There was also fault in the way the Council responded to Mr X’s complaints. Rather than respond to the specific concerns raised the Council provided standardised responses that did not resolve the issue. Had the Council investigated Mr X’s complaints properly, it would have identified the error with the collection day and rectified the problem much sooner.
  5. Having identified fault, I must now consider whether this has caused Mr X an injustice. Mr X has had to find ways to manage the uncollected household waste left at his property, including making regular trips to the tip. He has also experienced frustration and disappointment, both with the missed collections while properties opposite had collections, and the Council’s poor complaint responses. Mr X has been put to unnecessary time and trouble in trying to resolve this matter. He states he has had to set aside a slot each week to report the missed collections by phone, as reporting online has no effect.

Agreed action

  1. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X and pay him £300 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the failure to make regular household waste collections since October 2018 has caused.
  2. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.
  3. The Council has also agreed to carry out a period of monitoring to ensure Mr X’s household waste is collected on the scheduled days. This monitoring should begin within one month of the final decision on this complaint and continue for a period of eight weeks.

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Final decision

  1. The Council’s failure to make regular household waste collections since October 2018, amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mr X an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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