Summary: Mr X complained the Council failed to investigate and respond to his complaint about the missed bin collections at his address. The Council failed to explain why it missed collections and did not contact him as it agreed it would. However, that did not cause Mr X a significant injustice and it has resolved the waste collections issues.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council failed to investigate and respond to his complaint about the missed bin collections at his address. Mr X believes the Council failed to collect the waste from the communal bins because of his race and sexuality. He feels the Council’s lack of explanation to his complaint was because he had previously taken the Council to court and it was its way of getting back at him.

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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 the information provided by Mr X and the Council’s response to my enquiries.
5. The Council and Mr X both had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

6. Mr X said the Council failed to collect the waste from the block of flats he lives in three times in May and June 2019. On 26 June 2019, he telephoned the Council to complain about the collection issues. The Council said it would investigate his complaint and respond by 24 July 2019.
7. Mr X wrote to the Council and complained further. On 31 July 2019, the Council responded. It apologised for not being able to resolve the complaint at stage one. It said that it had asked the waste supervisor to contact him to arrange a time to visit to discuss the issues with waste collections.
8. In August 2019, Mr X brought his complaint to the Ombudsman. He was unhappy the Council had not met with him and failed to offer an explanation about why it had missed collections.

The Council’s response to enquiries

9. The Council said there were changes to the staffing on the round that collected from Mr X’s address and that caused disruption to his waste collection service. It said it resolved the situation in September 2019 and that it had not received a complaint from Mr X since. It said there was no discrimination involved in the Council’s failure to collect bins and that these were communal.
10. The Council said it would continue to monitor Mr X’s waste collections.

My findings

11. The Council accepted it missed collections earlier in the year and said that was because of a change of staff on Mr X’s collection route. Although that was fault, it has not caused a significant injustice to Mr X as Mr X said the Council only missed three collections. The Council said it has resolved the collection issues and continues to monitor Mr X’s collections.
12. The Council’s complaint response to Mr X did not explain the reason for the missed collections. In addition, the waste supervisor did not contact Mr X to discuss the problems with collections as agreed in the stage two complaint response. Both the above were fault. Although that fault has caused Mr X avoidable frustration it has not caused him a significant injustice as the Council has resolved the waste collection issues.
13. There is nothing to suggest the Council’s failure to collect waste was because of Mr X’s ethnicity or sexuality.

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Final decision

14. Mr X complained the Council failed to investigate and respond to his complaint about the missed bin collections at his address. The Council failed to explain why it missed collections and did not contact him as it agreed it would. However, that did not cause Mr X a significant injustice and it has resolved the waste collections issues. Therefore, I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman