Summary: Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her recycling on the scheduled days, or in a timely manner when it misses collections. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mrs X’s recycling as scheduled over a sustained period 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 her recycling on the scheduled days, or in a timely manner when it misses collections. Mrs X states there can be periods of several weeks or months between collections which leads to an unsightly accumulation of waste.

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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 information provided by Mrs X;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• discussed the issues with Mrs X; and
• Mrs 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. 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

8. Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her recycling on the scheduled days, or in a timely manner when it misses collections. Mrs X states the Council has missed consecutive collections and at one point she had to wait 14 weeks between collections. As Mrs X does not know when the Council will collect her recycling, she states she has to leave her bin out on the pavement in front of her property awaiting collection. This encourages other people to use her bin or leave additional waste, which exacerbates the problem.
9. According to the Council’s records Mrs X reported 14 missed recycling collections between July 2019 and July 2020. The reports are all closed which indicates the Council has since made the missed collections. However, the dates these reports were closed are inconsistent and do not suggest the Council made the collections in a timely manner. The records also suggest the Council also missed other collections.
10. For example, Mrs X reported missed collections on 20 August and 2 September 2019, which the Council closed three months later on 2 December 2019. This suggest that the Council missed further collections. If the Council had made the subsequent collections as scheduled, it could have closed the reports much sooner. It is also curious that the Council closed reports of missed collections scheduled for 15 and 29 October 2019 on 5 and 6 December 2019, respectively. If the Council had made a collection on 2 December 2019 as its records suggest, further collections on 5 and 6 December 2019 would have been unnecessary.
11. There are similar inconsistencies in the records for 2020. Mrs X reported missed collections on 18 February and on 3, 17 and 31 March 2020. The Council closed the first two reports on 16 April 2020 and the following two reports on 25 May 2020. This is curious as if the Council had made a collection on 16 April 2020, it could have closed all four reports that day.
12. 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.
13. In addition to reporting missed collections, Mrs X also made a formal complaint. In late October 2019 Mrs X complained the Council was make irregular recycling collections with large gaps between them. She complained it was now six weeks since the Council had collected her recycling, and there was a six-week gap between that and the previous collection. Mrs X complained that prior to that the Council had not collected her recycling for 14 weeks.
14. In its response, the Council explained it had faced challenging circumstances since January 2019 which had resulted in missed collections. The Council had managed to stabilise the service, but there were still a number of ongoing difficulties it was working to resolve. The Council apologised for the reduced level of service over recent months, and the inconvenience this caused.
15. Mrs X was not satisfied by the Council’s response and asked the Council to review her complaint. It was now eight weeks since the Council had collected her recycling, and other residents were leaving excess waste next to her bin. The Council reviewed the complaint and confirmed it had alerted a senior depot manager to her concerns. This should ensure collections returned to schedule. The Council also confirmed it would monitor Mrs X’s next two collections (24 December 2019 and 7 January 2020) to ensure they were back on track.
16. As the Council missed further collections. Mrs X asked the Ombudsman to investigate her complaint. The Council states the recycling collection for the whole of Mrs X’s street was dropped on 7 January 2020 due to resourcing issues. It set up further monitoring until 17 March 2020.
17. The Council’s records of this monitoring show it made all the scheduled collections save for 17 March 2020. However, the Council’s records also show Mrs X reports missed collections on 4 and 18 February and on 3 and 17 March 2020.
18. Mrs X states the service has not improved and she has continued to report missed collections. The Council has not offered an explanation for the missed collection but has asked the depot manager to speak to the crew again and for Mrs X’s next few collections to be physically checked.

Analysis

19. It is clear from the Council’s records that it has repeatedly failed to collect Mrs X’s recycling. These failings in the service amount to fault.
20. The Council accepts it has missed collections, and that there will have been delays in making these missed collections. Its records of Mrs X’s reported missed collections, when it subsequently made the collections, and then closed the reports are incomplete and inconsistent.
21. The Council states Mrs X has reported a total of 14 missed collections over a twelve-month period, but I consider it likely the Council missed significantly more collections. There are inconsistencies in the Council’s records, and I note Mrs X’s complaints refer to consecutive missed collections and waiting weeks and months for the Council to make collections.
22. 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 recycling.
23. It is concerning that the Council appears to have recorded collections as being made during the monitoring period, which Mrs X has reported as missed. The Council has not provided any details of what its monitoring involved, or how the Council satisfied itself the crews had completed the collections. Nor has it provided any evidence to suggest it challenged or disputed Mrs X’s reports of missed collections during the monitoring period. This calls into question the accuracy of the Council’s records and the efficacy of its monitoring.
24. Having identified fault, I must now consider whether this has caused Mrs X a significant injustice. Mrs 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 ongoing failure to resolve the problem. Mrs X has been put to unnecessary time and trouble in trying to resolve this matter.

Agreed action

25. The Council has agreed to:
• apologise to Mrs X and pay her £300 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the repeated failure to make regular recycling collections has caused.
• implement a further three-month period of monitoring to ensure Mrs X’s recycling is collected as scheduled. This should include physically checking Mrs X’s bins have been emptied.
26. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.

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Final decision

27. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mrs X’s recycling as scheduled over a sustained period amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mrs X an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman