Canterbury City Council (19 003 160)
Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling
Decision : Upheld
Decision date : 09 Oct 2019
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of his complaints about its refuse collectors, putting him to time and trouble. The Ombudsman finds the Council at fault in how it dealt with Mr X’s complaint. The Ombudsman recommends the Council makes a payment to Mr X for his time and trouble and takes action to prevent recurrence.
The complaint
- Mr X complains the Council’s refuse collectors are causing damage to his property and the Council has not properly addressed his complaint from January 2019. Mr X says he has been put to time and trouble and suffered financial loss.
What I have investigated
- I have investigated how the Council dealt with Mr X’s complaint. At the end of this decision I have set out why I have not investigated other matters.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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)
- The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I spoke to Mr X and I reviewed documents provided by Mr X and the Council. I gave Mr X and the Council the opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision.
What I found
- The Council publishes its complaints procedure on its website.
- This says any dissatisfaction with a council service is a complaint. But complaints are different from a request for service. For example, a one-off contact to say a bin has been missed could be a request for service. An ongoing situation with repeatedly missed bins is likely to be a complaint.
- The Council has a two stage complaints process.
- At stage one it aims to respond within 14 days. If a person is unhappy with its response they should contact the person who dealt with the complaint.
- If the person remains unhappy they can ask a senior manager within the service for an internal review. This is stage two.
- Finally, if a person is still unhappy they can contact the Ombudsman.
What happened
- Mr X says he complained to the Council in January 2019 about refuse collectors placing his recycling bins in such a way as to damage his fence, gate and hedge.
- On 14 March Mr X complained to the Council of the same issue and a failure to respond to his previous complaint.
- On 22 March the Council told Mr X it had logged his complaint with its contractor, who it asked to remind staff about bin placement.
- Mr X asked the Council what else it would do as reminders had previously failed. The Council officer said they would speak to their manager.
- On 10 April Mr X chased a further response and complained the issue had recurred. He then asked the Council to escalate his complaint.
- On 23 April the contractor offered to meet with Mr X. However, as Mr X was not immediately available the contractor confirmed a supervisor would visit the site, speak to crew and monitor the situation.
- On 9 May Mr X complained to the Council and its contractor of the same issue. He was also unhappy the Council had not dealt with his complaint itself.
- On 10 May the contractor apologised to Mr X and assured him it would rectify the issue.
- Mr X chased the Council for a response and on 22 May complained to the Council the problem had recurred.
- The Council responded to the complaint on 7 June. It assured Mr X it had spoken to the refuse crew and given instructions on where to place his bins. It apologised for the delay in resolving this.
- On 19 and 26 June Mr X complained again about the placement of his bins.
- On 27 June the Council told Mr X it had spoken to its contractor who would now send the Council a weekly text to confirm it had returned the bins to the correct place.
- On 1 August the Council checked with Mr X that it had now resolved the issue. Mr X confirmed it had.
Findings
- Having reviewed the correspondence exchanged I find the Council at fault in its handling of Mr X’s complaint because:
- it failed to respond to Mr X’s complaint of January 2019 within 14 days or at all;
- it did not take ownership of the complaint or properly address Mr X’s request to escalate the complaint in April and May;
- it did not take effective action in order to resolve the complaint promptly.
- As a result of the Council’s fault Mr X was put to time and trouble contacting the Council seeking to resolve the issue over a long period of time.
Agreed action
- To remedy the injustice set out above I recommend the Council carry out the following actions within one month of the date of my decision:
- Pay Mr X £100 for time and trouble;
- Review its handling of Mr X’s complaints to identify why it did not follow its complaints procedure, take action to prevent recurrence and inform the Ombudsman of the action taken;
- Upon any further complaints from Mr X, ensure the Council monitors the situation to ensure the issue is resolved before closing the complaint.
- The Council has accepted my recommendations.
Final decision
- I find the Council at fault in its handling of Mr X’s complaint. The Council has accepted my recommendations and I have completed my investigation.
Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate
- I have not investigated Mr X’s complaint that the Council caused damage to his property. This is because the courts are the more appropriate forum to consider such a claim and it is reasonable to expect Mr X to go to court if he wishes.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman