Summary: The Ombudsman should not consider Mr P’s complaint about the Council missing his recycling collections for four weeks. This is because there is insufficient injustice to warrant investigation and investigation is unlikely to identify fault.

The complaint

1. Mr P complained the Council failed to collect his recycling bin for four weeks without notice. He also complained the recycling staff were rude and dismissive when he spoke to them during an attempted collection. Mr P is unhappy the Council did not refer to his video evidence during its first complaint response and says the complaints procedure took too long.

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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:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• 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 have considered all the information Mr X provided. I have also considered the Council’s response. I have written to Mr X with my draft decision and considered his comments.

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What I found

Missed collections

4. Mr P says the Council failed to collect his recycling four times in August-September 2019.
5. The Council says its policy states it cannot collect recycling if it contains non-recyclable items.
6. As part of his complaint evidence, Mr P supplied the Council with a video of the non-collection at the beginning of September 2019. The Council says the video appears to show staff indicating the recycling bin contained non-recyclable items. I have reviewed the video and it is unlikely we would find fault in the Council’s analysis of it. The Council is entitled to come to a decision about what happened, if it makes its decision without fault.
7. I do not consider the four non-collections caused Mr P enough injustice to warrant an investigation. It is also unlikely that an investigation would identify fault, as we cannot say now whether Mr P’s recycling bin contained non-recyclable items.
8. Mr P says that Council only notified him of the non-collection on one occasion.
9. I am not persuaded that Mr P experienced significant injustice by not receiving a notification from the Council on the other occasions. Further investigation is unlikely to identify fault.

Behaviour of recycling staff

10. Mr P complained that recycling staff were rude and dismissive to him at the beginning of September 2019, when he challenged the non-collection.
11. The Council says the video Mr P sent of the conversation did not suggest any unreasonable behaviour. I have reviewed the video and it is unlikely we would find fault in the Council’s analysis of it. It is unlikely that an investigation would identify fault in the staff member’s behaviour, as it is a matter of subjective opinion whether that behaviour was rude or dismissive. The video does not evidence behaviour that amounts to maladministration.

Complaints procedure

12. Mr P sent the Council a video of one of the failed collections as evidence for his complaint. He says the Council did not refer to this in their first complaint response. The Council acknowledged this and apologised.
13. Mr P says the Council took too long to consider his complaint. Mr P first complained to the Council at the beginning of September 2019. He escalated his complaint to Stage 2 seven weeks later. He received a final response a further five weeks after that.
14. I do not consider that the failure of the Council to refer to the video or the length of time they took to respond to his complaint caused significant injustice to Mr P.

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Final decision

15. My view is that the Ombudsman should not investigate this complaint. This is because there is insufficient evidence of injustice to warrant investigation. Investigation would also be unlikely to identify fault.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman