Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms B’s complaint about missed garden waste collections. This is because there is not enough evidence of significant personal injustice to warrant an investigation. Also, it is unlikely we could add anything to the Council’s response.

The complaint

1. Ms B complains the Council missed two garden waste collections. Ms B says as a result of this, she had to visit the household waste recycling centre to dispose of her garden waste. Ms B says the Council have refused to provide her with a refund. Ms B says the Council failed respond to her complaint on the date it said it would.

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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, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered Ms B’s complaint and the final response issued by the Council. I sent Ms B a draft statement and invited her comments.

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What I found

4. Ms B signed up for the Council’s garden waste collection service. The annual cost of the service is £45. The service covers all months of the year apart from December and January.
5. Ms B moved and she updated her address on the Council’s website. However, the address was not passed to the garden waste collectors and so her waste was not collected. Ms B contacted the Council and it apologised and said it would send a sticker to put on the bin to ensure it was collected. As the sticker would be unlikely to reach Ms B before the next garden waste was collected, the Council told her it would send a message so her garden waste would be collected without a sticker. However, the garden waste was not collected the next collection day.
6. Ms B says as her collection is fortnightly and her garden waste had not gone for four weeks, she had no other choice but to visit the household waste recycling centre to dispose of her garden waste because of the smell and the volume. Ms B asked the Council to refund her for a month of missed collections.
7. The Council apologised for any inconvenience caused to Ms B. The Council also said they could not offer a refund to Ms B for the missed collections because its terms and conditions did not provide for a refund.
8. I do not consider the two missed collections Ms B complains about represents significant personal injustice. With an annual charge of £45, two missed collections in a month equates to a loss of £4.50. Ms B says this is a significant amount of money to her. While this may be the case, this is not significant enough to warrant an investigation by the Ombudsman.
9. In addition, the Council has apologised for the missed collections and an investigation by the Ombudsman would be unlikely to achieve anything more.
10. Ms B is unhappy the Council did not respond to her complaint on the date it said it would. The Ombudsman will not normally look at a Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. That is the case here.

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Final decision

11. The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms B’s complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of significant personal injustice to warrant an investigation. Also, it is unlikely we could add anything to the Council’s response.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman