Summary: The Council was at fault for failing to collect Mr B’s garden waste on several occasions. It has agreed to investigate the missed collections and to form an action plan to prevent this happening again.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr B, complains that the Council has regularly failed to collect his bins since March 2019.

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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. I considered information from Mr B and the Council. I wrote to Mr B and the Council with my draft decision and gave them the opportunity to comment.

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What I found

What happened?

5. Mr B complained to the Council in May 2019. He said the Council had failed to collect his garden waste on four occasions. The Council responded and apologised for the missed collections. It said the matter had been referred to the team leader of the route, who had arranged a recovery collection.
6. The Council said it would monitor Mr B’s bin collections in the near future. It asked him to report any more missed collections.
7. Mr B complained again in July, saying more collections had been missed. The Council said it had investigated the issue and agreed that there had been a missed collection. It arranged for the waste to be collected.
8. The Council noted that not all missed collections had been recorded by its officers, which is in contravention of its policy. It said it would address this with the staff members. It also said it was in the process of undertaking a route review and would work to increase the reliability of Mr B’s service.
9. Mr B asked for compensation for the missed collections. The Council refused, saying it provided the service for free, and also allowed people to take their garden waste to council facilities for free, so the missed collections did not cost Mr B anything. However, it apologised again.
10. Mr B says he continued to experience problems with the collections. However, he did not formally report them to the Council because he did not believe the matter would be resolved.

My findings

11. The Council has already accepted that it was at fault for missing Mr B’s garden waste collections earlier in 2019.
12. Although the Council took action to prevent the same issues happening again, it appears that this may not have worked. However, Mr B did not report further issues, so the Council cannot have been expected to know about them.
13. The Council has offered to investigate the matter, to speak to Mr B to find out more about the missed collections, and to form an action plan to ensure that this does not happen again.
14. I am satisfied that this will remedy Mr B’s injustice.

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Agreed actions

15. The Council has agreed to investigate Mr B’s continued missed garden waste collections, and – as part of its investigation – to contact Mr B to find out more about them.
16. The Council has agreed to form an action plan to prevent collections being missed in future, and to share this plan with Mr B.
17. These actions should be completed within six weeks of my final decision statement.

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Final decision

18. The Council was at fault for failing to collect Mr B’s garden waste on several occasions. The agreed actions remedy his injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman