Summary: Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect the recycling from her street on the scheduled days, leading to a significant accumulation of waste. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mrs X’s recycling over several months amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mrs X an injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect the recycling from her street on the scheduled days. She states there were no collections for a period of three months, which meant significant amount of waste accumulated on the street.
2. Mrs X also complains the Council’s responses to her complaints did not address the issues or resolve the problem.

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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 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

5. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mrs X;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• sent a statement setting out my draft decision to Mrs X and the Council and invited their comments.

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What I found

Refuse and recycling collections

6. 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.
7. The Council's practice is to make a weekly household waste collection and a fortnightly recycling collection.
8. 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.

What happened here

9. Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect the recycling from her street, and that for a three-month period over the summer of 2019 there were no collections at all. She states the accumulated wate and overflowing bins meant her street looked like a rubbish dump. Mrs X was also concerned that recyclable waste would be thrown in the landfill sites.
10. The Council’s records show Mrs X reported 11 missed collections in 2019.
11. The reports are all closed which indicates the missed collections have since been made. However, the dates these reports were closed are inconsistent and do not suggest the collections were all made in a timely manner. The records also suggest that other collections were also missed.
12. As an example, Mrs X reported missed collections on 4 and 19 March 2019 and the Council closed the reports on 27 March and 18 April 2019 respectively. If the Council had collected the missed waste on 27 March 2019, it could have closed both reports that day.
13. There are further anomalies in July 2019. Mrs X reported a missed collection on 9 July 2019 which the Council closed on 22 July 2019. However, Mrs X also reported a missed collection on 22 July 2019, and the Council closed this report on 5 August 2019, the same day Mrs X reported a further missed collection. If the Council had made collections on either 22 July or 5 August 2019, Mrs X would not have needed to report further missed collections on those days.
14. The Council states there may be a delay between the missed collections being made and the report being closed, so it is not necessarily the case that the intervening collections were also missed. However, the Council has not provided evidence of the dates the missed collections were made where they are different to the date the report was closed.
15. In July 2019 Mrs X also made a formal complaint about the poor service. She complained about there had been no collections in May or July 2019 and that the bins were overflowing. The Council apologised for the reduced level of service and stated there were ongoing operational difficulties which it was working hard to resolve.
16. As there were further missed collections, Mrs X asked the Council to review her complaint. The Council reiterated there were still a number of operational issues that needed to be attended to so that scheduled collections could be carried out. It noted that Mrs X had not reported a missed collection on 19 August 2019 and that the next scheduled collection would be 2 September 2019.
17. Mrs X was not satisfied by the Council’s response and has asked the Ombudsman to investigate her complaint. In response to my enquiries the Council states that during the middle part of last year the depot were experiencing a number of operational issues such as resourcing which impacted on scheduled recycling collections. The Council set up a period of monitoring of Mrs X’s recycling collections. It states the monitoring was completed satisfactorily, but the whole round was dropped on the next scheduled collection. The Council has extended the monitoring for a further five collections. The Council states this monitoring will be able to verify that recycling collections on Mrs X’s street are back on track.
18. In relation to the responses to Mrs X’s complaint, the Council states it uses templates to ensure consistency in the approach and content of its responses. It states the templates are intended to address the current situation and are regularly reviewed and updated. The Council is satisfied the information provided to Mrs X in response to her complaints accurately reflected the situation at the time, that is, operational issues.

Analysis

19. It is clear from the documentation I have received that there have been repeated failings in the Council’s service which amount to fault.
20. The Council accepts that collections have been missed, and that there will have been delays in these missed collections being made. Its records of Mrs X’s reported missed collections, when the collections were subsequently made, and the reports closed are incomplete and inconsistent. And I do not consider them to be a reliable indicator of the extent of the problem. I consider it likely that there were more missed collections than the Council’s records suggest.
21. I also consider there to be fault in the way the Council has responded to Mrs X’s complaints. The Council has sent generic responses which do not indicate any consideration of Mrs X’s particular complaints. Referring to operational difficulties does not explain why the recycling from Mrs X’s street was not collected for three months. And there is no indication of how or when the problem would be resolved.

Having identified fault, I must now consider whether this has caused Mrs X an injustice. Mr X has had to find ways to manage the uncollected recycling left at her property. She has also experienced frustration and disappointment, both with the missed collections and the Council’s failure to resolve the problem. Mrs X has been put to unnecessary time and trouble in trying to resolve this matter.

Agreed action

22. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X and pay her £150 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the repeated failure to make regular assisted household waste and recycling collections has caused.
23. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.

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Final decision

24. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mrs X’s recycling amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mrs X an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman