Summary: The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint about the loss of some of Mr B’s property. This is because there is not enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman investigating the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr B complains the Council took some of his personal property, worth around £30, during a recycling collection and refused to accept responsibility or pay him the value of the items.

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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’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information Mr B provided. I considered copies of the complaint correspondence, which I obtained from the Council. I gave Mr B the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

4. Mr B has a refuse bin and a recycling bin. Mr B states just used the recycling bin to store some of his own belongings and never put it out for collection, keeping it instead at the side of his house.
5. Mr B says on a recycling collection day, his recycling bin was emptied although he had not put it out for collection. He presumes the Council’s collection crew came onto his property to take the recycling bin. Mr B also says it should have been clear to the crew that the bin’s contents (a large builder’s sheet and up to 50 garden waste bags) were not items for recycling.
6. The Council denies fault, stating its collection crews do not enter a property unless the resident requires assistance. It also says bins should only be used for waste and recycling and not to store personal items. The Council declined to replace the lost items or pay Mr B their value, which Mr B says was around £30.
7. As paragraph 2 explained, the Ombudsman will not necessarily pursue every complaint. We only pursue complaints where the alleged fault has disadvantaged the person complaining significantly enough to justify the Ombudsman investigating. Here, replacing the items will cost Mr B around £30 and some time. I do not consider that amounts to a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman devoting time and public money to investigating whether the Council was at fault.
8. Mr B is also dissatisfied with the Council’s handling of his complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are not dealing with the substantive issue (in this case, the loss of the bin’s contents). So I shall not pursue this point either.

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Final decision

9. The Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because the alleged fault did not cause a significant enough injustice to warrant investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman