Summary: Miss X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling on the scheduled day since May 2019 and has made only two ad-hoc collections. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Miss X’s household waste and recycling amounts to fault. This fault has caused Miss X an injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Miss X complains the Council has failed to provide the agreed assisted collection service for many years. She complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling on the scheduled day since May 2019 and has only had two collections in this period. This has led to a build-up of waste which Miss X is unable to dispose of.

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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. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Miss X;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Refuse and recycling collections

5. 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.
6. The Council's practice is to make a weekly household waste collection and a fortnightly recycling collection.
7. The Council provides an assisted collection service for people who are unable to move their bins and boxes due to a disability or age. The Council should collect the bins from the storage point and return them to the same point.
8. When a resident reports a missed collection, the Depot will ask the crew to return to complete the round as soon as possible. When the Council has completed the collection, it closes the report.

What happened here

9. Miss X complains that the Council has provided a poor assisted collection service for many years. She complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling on the scheduled day since May 2019 and has only made two collections in this period. This has led to a build-up of waste. As Miss X is unable to dispose of it, she has to store the uncollected waste at her home. Miss X states she has to clean and store the recycling in her home which are fire and tripping hazards. The full bins and accumulated waste outside are an environmental hazard and have attracted mice and foxes.
10. The Council’s records show Miss X has reported seven missed household waste collections and three missed recycling collections since May 2019. The reports from 2019 are all closed which indicates the Council has since made the missed collections. But most reports from 2020 are still open. Where the reports are closed, the closure dates do not suggest the Council made the collections in a timely manner. The records also suggest the Council also missed other collections.
11. For example, Miss X reported a missed household waste collection on 30 May 2019 which the Council closed on 20 June 2019. This suggests the Council also missed collections scheduled for 6 and 13 June 2019. If the Council had made these collections, it could have closed the report on those dates.
12. There are also inconsistencies in relation to records of Miss X’s missed recycling collections. Miss X reported missed collections on 6 June and 16 July 2019, which the Council closed on 6 August and 11 November 2019 respectively. This not only suggests the Council missed other scheduled collections, but is curious, as, if the Council made a collection on 8 August 2019, it could have closed both reports that day.
13. The Council states there may be a delay between when it goes out to collect a missed collection and when it closes the report, so it is not necessarily the case that it also missed the intervening collections. However, the Council has not provided evidence of the dates it made the missed collections where they are different to the date the report was closed.
14. In addition to reporting missed collections, Miss X also contacted her MP for assistance and made formal complaints. In May 2019 Miss X complained the Council had not collected her household waste for four weeks. The crews were still collecting her recycling but had stopped collecting her household waste. Miss X reminded the Council she should receive assisted collections. She asked the Council to ensure she received weekly collections and that her bins were collected from and returned to the back of her drive.
15. The Council’s response explained it had faced some challenging circumstances since January, which had resulted in missed collections. The Council had stabilised the service but there were still a number of operational difficulties it was working to resolve. The Council did not refer to the assisted collection service but advised Miss X to leave her bins out on the usual collection day.
16. Miss X does not appear to have received the Council’s letter as she contacted the Council again in July 2019 to complain about the lack of response. Miss X said it was seven weeks since she had submitted her complaint and her household waste and recycling had still not been collected. She reiterated that she needed assisted collections as she could not dispose of the accumulated waste herself and asked the Council to collect the waste immediately.
17. The Council did not respond to Miss X’s email. As the service did not improve, Miss X contacted the Council again in October 2019. She stated that other than one collection of both household waste and recycling, her bins were still not being collected. Miss X informed the Council she intended to complain to the Ombudsman. The Council did not respond.
18. In addition to raising her concerns with the Ombudsman, Miss X also made a further complaints to the Council. In April 2020 Miss X complained the Council had closed her last three complaints without resolving the issue. Miss X asserted that failing to provide the assisted collection service was a form of discrimination.
19. The Council confirmed it had passed Miss X’s complaint to the service manager and apologised for any inconvenience. It explained that collection services were operating as normal but due to Covid 19 there may be some disruption to the service.
20. Miss X was not satisfied by the Council’s response. She did not accept the missed collections were due to staff shortages as this would affect all houses on her road, rather than just hers. Miss X asked the Council to investigate her complaint properly. The Council did not respond.
21. Miss X states the Council is still not collecting her household waste or recycling. The Council missed both of Miss X’s bins again this week. Miss X considers the Council has taken too long to resolve this matter and its failure to respond to her correspondence is part of a wider service failure, in that the Council is unresponsive and unaccountable.
22. In response to my enquiries the Council states it runs an assisted collection report at the start of each month with an updated list of all assisted collections. It then manually adds properties to each depot’s hard drive so they can print off and add this to crew information packs. Assisted collection properties also appear on the crew’s mobile technology.
23. The Council states it sent out letters in December 2018 asking assisted collection residents to confirm that they still needed the service. As Miss X did not respond the Council removed the assisted collection status from her property on 22 February 2019. The Council suggests the missed collections may be due to Miss X believing she is still registered for assisted collections. It states Miss X can ask for the assisted collection for her property to be reinstated at any time.
24. The Council acknowledges it should have identified the issue with assisted collections earlier so that Miss X had the opportunity to request this be reinstated.

Analysis

25. It is clear from the Council’s records that it has repeatedly failed to collect Miss X’s household waste and recycling. These failings in the service amount to fault.
26. The Council states Miss X has reported a total of ten missed collections, but I consider it likely the Council missed significantly more collections. There are inconsistencies in the Council’s records, and I note Miss X’s complaints refer to missed collections which are not included on the Council’s list. I do not therefore consider the Council’s records are a reliable reflection of the extent of the missed collections, or when it actually collected the household waste and recycling.
27. I also consider there to be fault in the way the Council has responded to Miss X’s complaints. Miss X’s complaints and communication with the Council make it clear that she needs, and believes she is registered for, assisted collections. As the Council removed Miss X’s assisted collection status in February 2019, I would have expected the Council to have addressed this in its responses. The Council’s failure to properly investigate Miss X’s complaints and respond to her specific concerns about the assisted collection service amount to fault.
28. Having identified fault, I must now consider whether this has caused Miss X an injustice. Miss X has had to find ways to manage the uncollected household waste and 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. Had the Council advised Miss X when she complained in May 2019 that she was no longer registered for assisted collections she could have requested this be reinstated. This may well have resolved the problem and avoided over a year of missed collections. Miss X has been put to unnecessary time and trouble in trying to resolve this matter.

Agreed action

29. The Council has agreed to:
• apologise to Miss X and pay her £300 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the repeated failure to make regular assisted household waste and recycling collections has caused.
• reinstate Miss X’s assisted collections and implement a further three-month period of monitoring to ensure the assisted collections are carried out properly with her bins being collected and returned to her property.
30. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.

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Final decision

31. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Miss X’s household waste and recycling amounts to fault. This fault has caused Miss X an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman