Summary: Mr X complains the Council failed to make any of the scheduled garden waste collections from his property between June and December 2019. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mr X’s garden waste amounts to fault. This fault had caused Mr X an injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X complains the Council failed to make any of the scheduled garden waste collections from his property between June and December 2019.

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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 Mr X;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• discussed the issues with Mr X; and
• Mr 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

Garden waste collections

5. The Council runs a fortnightly garden waste collection service for 40 weeks between March and December. The Council charges a fee for this service and it is only available to customers who have subscribed for the service in advance. The terms and conditions for this service state the Council will consider a refund where it has failed to rectify a reported missed collection of garden waste on three consecutive cycles.
6. When a missed collection is reported to the Council, the Depot will ask the crew to return to complete the round as soon as possible. When the collection is complete, the Council closes the report.

What happened here

7. Mr X moved into a new property and subscribed to the garden waste service in June 2019. He complains the Council did not collect his garden waste at all before the service ended in December 2019. Mr X states he has a large garden and had to mow the laws every fortnight between June and October 2019. This meant he had large amounts of garden waste which he had to take to the tip to dispose of.
8. To report a missed collection online, residents must put in their postcode. Mr X lives in a new build house, on a new estate, and states there were problems with his postcode. The Council told him it would be registered within a month, but it was not. As a result, the online system did not recognise his postcode, and he had to report the missed collections by phone.
9. Mr X states he spent hours on the phone to the Council trying to report missed collections, and that on many occasions he would be on hold for several minutes before the call disconnected. Mr X states that on other occasions where he was able to get through and speak to an advisor, they would be unable to find his postcode on the Council’s system. Sometimes he would be given a reference number but when he called again the advisors could not trace the reference. Mr X has a record of three of the reference numbers he was given, but not the dates they were issued.
10. Of all the reference numbers Mr X received, the Council was only able to trace two reports of missed collection. The Council’s records show these were consecutive reports on 13 and 27 September 2019. The next scheduled collection was 11 October 2019, so it is unclear why the Council closed the first report on 4 October and the second on 11 October 2019. If the Council made an additional collection on 4 October 2019, it could have closed both reports that day.
11. Mr X made a formal complaint about the garden waste service in December 2019. He was unhappy that despite paying the fee and receiving the bin, the Council had not collected his garden waste all year. Mr X stated he had reported missed collections, but his waste was still not collected. He asked the Council to refund the fee.
12. In its response, the Council apologised for any inconvenience but advised Mr X he did not meet the criteria for a refund. Mr X was not satisfied by the Council’s response and asked for his complaint to be reviewed. He stated he had tried to report missed collections but kept being placed on hold and his reports were not logged. Mr X was unhappy paying for a service he had not received.
13. The Council reviewed Mr X’s complaint and reiterated that as Mr X had only reported two missed collections, he did not meet the criteria for a refund. As Mr X remains unhappy, he has asked the Ombudsman to investigate his complaint. Mr X states he has CCTV recordings which show there were no garden waste collections from his property last year.
14. In response to my enquiries the Council states Mr X’s property was routed on 24 October 2019. Mr X would have been able to report missed collections online since that date. The Council also states the contact centre are able to manually create worksheets when residents of new properties wish to report missed collections.
15. The Council has suggested the missed collections were due to Mr X’s property being brand new, on a road that did not have road signs. It states the area was a building site, so access at times was impossible and suggests any non-reported missed collections were likely to have been missed for the same reason.
16. Mr X is not satisfied by this explanation as the Council has routinely collected his household waste and recycling from August 2019 onwards.

Analysis

17. The Council states Mr X has only reported two missed garden waste collections, but I consider it likely the Council missed significantly more collections. Mr X’s property was not included on a collection route for the first few months of the service. And the Council accepts there were difficulties in accessing the new estate where Mr X lives, and thus in collecting his waste. Until Mr X’s property was registered and routed on the Council’s systems, I consider it likely there will also have been problems in reporting missed collections.
18. I do not therefore consider the Council’s records to be a reliable indicator of the extent of the problem. Although it is not possible to confirm the exact number of missed collections I consider, on balance, that more than two collections were missed. The repeated failure to collect Mr X’s garden waste amounts to fault.
19. This fault has caused Mr X an injustice. As the Council accepted Mr X’s subscription and fee for the garden waste service, he had a legitimate expectation that his garden waste would be collected. He has instead had to store and then dispose of his garden waste himself.

Agreed action

20. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X for the frustration and difficulties the failure to make regular garden waste collections has caused.
21. The Council has also agreed to refund the fee Mr X paid for the garden waste service in 2019.
22. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.

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Final decision

23. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mr X’s garden waste amounts to fault. This fault had caused Mr X an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman