Summary: Mr X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to return his bins after collecting his household waste and recycling. The Council’s repeated failure to return Mr X’s bins as part of the assisted collection service amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mr X an injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to return his bins after collecting his household waste and recycling. Mr X should receive an assisted collection and had difficulties in finding and returning his bins to his property himself.

Back to top

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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

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

Back to top

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. Mr X states there have been problems with his assisted collections since 2017. He complains the Council has repeatedly failed to return his bins after collecting his household waste and recycling. Mr X has difficulties in finding and returning his bins to his property himself.
9. In December 2019 Mr X made a formal complaint to the Council, stating that yet again his bins had not been returned to the collection point. Mr X was unhappy this had been going on for over two years and he could not see why the issue had not been resolved.
10. The Council’s response apologised for the continued problems Mr X was experiencing. It confirmed it had passed his complaint to the crews’ manager so that they could resolve the issue. As the Council still failed to return Mr X’s bins, he asked the Council to review his complaint. The Council confirmed it had escalated Mr X’s complaint to the Service Manager and had arranged to monitor his collections for the next four weeks.
11. This did not resolve the problem, and the Council failed to return Mr X’s bins during the monitoring period, so Mr X asked the Ombudsman to investigate his complaint. In response to our 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.
12. The Council has confirmed it registered Mr X’s property for assisted collections in February 2018, but due to an unknown system error this was automatically deleted 30 minutes later. The Council states this was an isolated incident which has not reoccurred since. The Council states Mr X’s bins may not have been regularly returned to his property after the assisted collection was removed from the system.
13. The Council reinstated Mr X’s assisted collections in February 2020 and extended the monitoring period. The Council’s records show that during the monitoring period it failed to return Mr X’s household waste bin once and missed one recycling collection.
14. Mr X has confirmed the service has improved in recent months and his bins are routinely returned to his property.

Analysis

15. It is clear from the Council’s records there have been repeated failings in he assisted collection service the Council has provided Mr X. These failings in the service amount to fault.
16. The Council has not provided any details of how often or for how long Mr X reported problems with his bins not being returned. But its response to Mr X’s complaint in December 2019 apologised that Mr X was experiencing continued problems. And its further response states it has arranged for monitoring due to the length of time Mr X had experienced problems. This suggests the Council had been aware for some time that the crews were not returning Mr X’s bins.
17. It is disappointing that having registered Mr X for assisted collections this status was almost immediately removed from the system, and that this error was not identified for two years. I would have expected Mr X’s reports that his bins were not being returned to have prompted an investigation and identified the issue with his assisted collection status.
18. I recognise the Council has reinstated Mr X’s assisted collections and that the service has improved as a result. But had the Council properly investigated this matter at the outset, it could have resolved the problem sooner.
19. Having identified fault I must consider whether this has caused Mr X a significant injustice. Mr X has struggled to find and retrieve his bins when the crews do not return them, and when collections are missed, he has nowhere to store the uncollected waste. Mr X has experienced frustration and disappointment that despite his complaints and reporting of problems the bins were still not returned. He has also been put to time and trouble in pursuing this matter.

Agreed action

20. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X and pay him £100 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the repeated failure to make regular assisted household waste and recycling collections has caused.
21. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.

Back to top

Final decision

22. The Council’s repeated failure to return Mr X’s bins as part of the assisted collection service amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mr X an injustice.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman