Summary: The complainant says from 2017 to 2019 the Council failed to provide a suitable waste collection service from his home. He says the Council repeatedly missed collections resulting in the complainant contacting the Council and waiting for a further collection. The Council recognises it failed to provide a suitable service, took this up with its contractor and applied penalties to the contactor. The Council apologised to the complainant and offered the complainant a payment. The Ombudsman finds the Council at fault for failing to provide a suitable service.

The complaint

1. The complainant whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complains the Council failed to:
• Provide a regular refuse collection from his home leading to him reporting a missed collection nearly every week;
• Resolve the missed collection problem and offer a remedy.
2. Mr X wants the Council to comply with its legal duty to collect household waste from his home and to do so on time. Mr X says the failings have resulted in the Council not collecting waste for up to a month. Mr X wants the Council to improve the service and offer a payment in recognition of the avoidable inconvenience caused to Mr X.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. If 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)
5. We may investigate matters coming to our attention during an investigation, if we consider that a member of the public who has not complained may have suffered an injustice as a result. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26D and 34E, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. In considering this complaint I have:
• Contacted Mr X and read the information presented with his complaint;
• Put enquiries to the Council and studied its response;
• Research the relevant law, policy and guidance
• Shared with Mr X and the Council my draft decision and reflected on comments received.

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What I found

7. Councils have a legal duty to collect household waste and recycling without charge. While councils may use contractors to provide the service, councils remain responsible for ensuring the quality of the service and we hold them accountable if the service fails.
8. The Council has engaged a contractor to provide its waste collection service. Mr X says it repeatedly misses collections. This results in residents leaving bins out for several days awaiting a further collection causing inconvenience and with waste building up. Mr X says because the Council missed collections, waste can be outside for over two weeks.
9. In response to my enquiries the Council confirmed its contractor has missed collections in 2017, 2018 and 2019. It missed around 14 collections from Mr X’s home in 2019. However, the Council says in the last six months it has collected waste from 4 million containers and missed 11,000 which it says amounts to missing 0.275%. Under the contract the Council may impose penalties for missed collections.
10. The Council undertook supervisory checks on collections from Mr X’s property between 1 October and 13 December 2019. The Council has a hotspot list which records those properties with a history of missed collections. This identifies the areas the Council intends to supervise more closely to oversee the waste collection service. The contractor must contact the Council each collection day and confirm if it has successfully collected the waste from Mr X’s bins. The Council expects this to improve the service.
11. In March 2019 the Council wrote to Mr X and apologised for, as it put it:

“…the continued and chronic missed collections, and, as you rightly say, service failure”

12. The Council’s letter continues with an apology and confirmation the Council had directed managers to investigate the service failure. To help the contractor improve its service the Council said it would meet with the contractor every week and direct the contractor to ensure a supervisor personally verified each collection.
13. In October 2019 following further complaints from Mr X, the Council wrote to him again. In this letter the Council apologised for what it described as the chronic number of missed collections, significantly sub-standard service and the Council’s delay in achieving a resolution. The letter confirmed Mr X’s property remained on the hotspot list and on the agenda for discussion at weekly meetings.
14. In response to my enquiries the Council has offered an apology and a payment of £200 in recognition of the avoidable inconvenience caused to Mr X.
15. Mr X has continued to report missed collections during my investigation. Mr X says the failure to provide a regular, reliable refuse collection continues.
16. The Council has presented information it considers commercially sensitive which I cannot reveal here or share with Mr X. However, I have read the information and have seen evidence of the performance review meetings and records of improvements for some hotspot properties. The Council tells residents when the Council places their property on the hotspot list for extra supervision and when it removes it.

Analysis – has there been fault leading to injustice?

17. My role is to consider the way the Council manages services and responds to complaints. If I find the Council acted with fault or failed to deliver a service, I must consider if that caused an injustice. If it has, I will consider what the Council should do to correct the fault.
18. The failure to collect refuse from Mr X’s home has continued for too long. While residents can expect the odd missed collection now and then, repeated failings needing the resident to contact the Council again and again is not acceptable.
19. The Council has imposed measures it hoped would improve the service provided by its contractor. While its contractor meets the Council’s contractual expectations overall, it has clearly failed to provide an acceptable service to Mr X. I suggested to the Council this may be true of other properties on the hot spot list. The Council says it has reviewed the experience of other customers on the hot spot list and they have not experienced the same frequency of missed collections as Mr X.
20. During 2018 and 2019 the Council accepts significant, repeated, frequent failures to collect refuse. That cannot represent an acceptable service or one which complies with the Council’s legal duty to provide that service. I find the Council at fault for the service failure.
21. The result has caused avoidable, significant inconvenience to Mr X leaving waste uncollected and Mr X having to contact the Council and make repeated complaints. I welcome the offer of a payment in recognition of the inconvenience caused. However, I recommend a higher payment as a more suitable token of recognition of the impact of the inconvenience caused.

Recommended and agreed action

22. I recommend and the Council agrees to within four weeks of my final decision:
• Pay Mr X £250 in recognition of the failure to provide the waste collection service to an acceptable standard and improve the service.
• Arrange for a Council officer to jointly inspect with the Council’s contractor’s supervisory team collections from Mr X’s property on the appointed collection day for 8 weeks. Then to discuss with the contractor any reasons the Council’s officer finds for repeatedly missing collections from this property.
• Agree to issuing a plan on completion of the supervision inspections setting out how the contractor may improve the service and share it with Mr X.

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Final decision

23. In competing my investigation, I find the Council at fault for failing to provide a waste collection service and significantly improve the service without delay.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman