Summary: We found the Council at fault in not providing a regular bin collection service to Mr X. While the Council had improved the service, it also agreed to send Mr X a written apology to address the frustration and distress the repeated missed collections had caused him.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s repeated failure to collect both household waste and recycling from the road where he lived. This meant Mr X had to store waste on his property. Other residents along the road had bought extra bins and waste/recycling also piled up alongside full bins. During 2019, the uncollected waste/recycling had resulted in bad smells, interference by seagulls, foxes, and squirrels and led Mr X to have rat traps installed by the Council on his property. Mr X wanted the Council to put effective collection arrangements in place and ensure it had plans for when collection vehicles broke down and to cover staff shortages.

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What I have investigated

2. Mr X said he experienced problems with missed bin collections over many years. I investigated Mr X’s complaint about his bin collection service back to January 2019, which was about 12 months before he complained to the Council and then the Ombudsman. I found no good reason to consider collection problems before January 2019, which would be late complaints (see paragraph 4). Rather, my investigation considered recent problems, which the Council accepted existed, and how it would address them in the future.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. 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

6. I have:

• considered Mr X’s written complaint and supporting papers;
• talked to Mr X about the complaint;
• asked for and considered the Council’s comments and supporting papers about the complaint;
• shared, where possible, the Council’s comments and supporting papers with Mr X; and
• shared a draft of this statement with Mr X and the Council and considered their responses.

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What I found

Background

7. Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to collect household waste and recycling from their residents’ properties. The collections do not have to be weekly and councils can decide what bins or boxes people must use. Councils can also tell people when and where they must place their bins for collection.
8. Mr X said the Council’s website showed it would empty his household waste and recycling bins on Fridays. Over the last few years, Mr X experienced several late (bins collected on Mondays) and missed bin collections. Mr X said when he reported a missed collection, the Council gave the same excuses about refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) breaking down and staff shortages. Mr X found that if he reported a missed collection by telephone, the Council would come out to empty his bins. The service would then improve for a while before late and missed collections recurred.
9. However, Mr X said during December 2019, the Council did not empty his bins. Mr X’s greatest concern was about the Council not collecting his, and other nearby residents’, household waste. Mr X said he stored his household waste in his garage, but other residents’ waste was left beside their full bins. Mr X’s concern was this could lead to nuisance problems, for example, bad smells and attracting vermin. So, after a few weeks, Mr X formally complained to the Council about the missed collections. Mr X also complained about the time it took to report problems by telephone and the Council not responding to online reports. Mr X said the Council should organise and manage the service to overcome RCVs breaking down and staff shortages without leaving residents’ bins unemptied for weeks.
10. The Council apologised to Mr X and said it had now collected his waste. The Council explained that RCVs breaking down had caused knock-on effects for many collection routes, but it was now “looking to procure” new RCVs. The Council referred Mr X to stage 2 of its complaints procedure if he remained dissatisfied.
11. Mr X replied saying the Council had not yet collected his waste. Mr X said the Council should tell residents that it had received and was dealing with their reports of missed collections. Mr X also said the Council should make service changes to identify and address problems so no residents went without collections for more than two weeks.
12. The Council did not empty Mr X’s bins the next Friday. Mr X telephoned the Council’s refuse collection service. A Council officer then arranged an emergency bin collection and removed the waste from Mr X’s and his neighbours’ homes. It had been six weeks since the Council had last emptied Mr X’s bins. Mr X updated the Council’s complaints officer.
13. In its stage 2 complaint response, the Council accepted it was not providing a satisfactory service for residents. The Council said it knew problems were widespread and planned to modernise and provide an efficient and effective service. It had started a review, which included consideration of staff, staff organisation, RCVs, collection rounds, bins, and other equipment. It should complete the review by September 2020 and was making changes where it could before then. The Council said it had identified RCV breakdowns as a key problem. It had an ageing fleet, which experienced more mechanical problems, and no adequate fleet replacement programme. It was putting this right but did not want to now order new RCVs as the review would show what specific RCVs the new service needed.
14. The Council also said it experienced times of high staff shortages and often used agency workers not familiar with collections rounds. This could lead to delays and missed collections and, once there was disruption on one round, it quickly impacted on other collections causing further delays. This had been a problem for the collection round/crew that covered Mr X’s road. The Council said, where possible, it made evening and weekend collections to catch up on missed collections. The Council recognised that service changes were taking time and it would be months before people noticed a difference. Meanwhile, it could not say Mr X would not experience further problems. The Council told Mr X where he could find information on its website about the review and modernisation of the service.
15. After Mr X complained to the Ombudsman, he reported a further missed collection in August 2020.

The Council’s response to the complaint

16. The Council said it had investigated residents’ concerns about receipt of online missed collection reports but found no evidence of a problem. And, between January 2019 and September 2020, it had received 29 online reports of missed collections from Mr X.
17. The Council said it had now changed its procedures for dealing with missed collection reports. Officers in its contact centre and service team leaders discussed reports each morning. And, after each shift, the service team leaders and collection crews held a ‘debrief’. This included a discussion about what had happened to the missed collections. The Council had also agreed more IT funding to further improve both online reporting of missed collections by residents and management of those reports by officers.
18. The Council said it had also changed its approach to dealing with missed collections. It used to ‘fit in’ a missed collection when crews had time. The Council accepted this could result in missed collections remaining unresolved for a long time. It now dealt with the previous day’s reported missed collections before starting that day’s scheduled collections.
19. The Council was working on, but had yet to put in place, procedures for monitoring and addressing recurring missed collections, like those reported by Mr X. While putting suitable procedures in place, it was working with officers to move away from ‘firefighting’ individual reports. Instead, officers were producing improvement plans for rounds affected by repeated reports of missed collections.
20. To cover RCV breakdowns, the Council said it offered overtime to another crew. That crew would then carry out the round affected by the RCV breakdown late that day or the next day. The Council also said it had worked with drivers and maintenance staff and reduced the number of RCVs off road. It had also now identified some RCVs as beyond economic repair and replaced these with new ‘green’ RCVs.
21. To address staffing issues, the Council said it had a ‘pool’ of staff it could call on to cover staff absences. The Council also said it ‘over ordered’ agency workers to ensure it had cover being aware of the age profile of permanent staff. And, it had now worked with the agency to improve access to suitable agency workers.
22. The Council accepted that modernising the service was taking more time than it would like. And, since starting the service review it had faced the unexpected challenges of a depot fire and asbestos in offices. COVID-19 had also led to reduced and redeployed staff and changes to many services. It had not therefore been able to complete the review as planned by September 2020.
23. The Council accepted it had failed Mr X as it should have resolved the problems with his missed bin collections. The Council said it would apologise. Its officers had now visited Mr X’s road and arranged to cut back overhanging vegetation, which caused problems for RCVs. A ‘small’ RCV would now access Mr X’s road as far as safe to do and ‘walk back the bins’ where necessary between the RCV and peoples’ homes. The Council also explained that, by mistake, it sent a full size RCV to cover Mr X’s road in August 2020, which led to the missed collection. The Council said it had discussed what happened with the service team leader and collection crew. The Council also accepted it had not told Mr X and other residents about changes to collection days. The Council said it had learned from Mr X’s complaint and changed how it would deal with complaints about recurring missed bin collections.

Consideration

24. The Council effectively accepted it was at ‘fault’ as it recognised it had not provided an adequate waste collection service to Mr X. Uncollected household waste can quickly become a problem for residents. Even if the Council usually responded quickly to Mr X reports of missed collections, I do not doubt repeated failures to collect his household waste caused him frustration and distress.
25. From the Council’s response to the complaint and information on its website, I do not doubt the scale and extent of its necessary modernisation programme. Unfortunately, the Council did not complete its service review in September 2020. And yet, I recognise the impact the COVID-19 emergency will have had on progress with the review. However, the Council showed it had taken steps before completing the review to effect improvements. So, while securing change was taking time, the evidence showed the Council was, and had, been continually working to improve its service.
26. For Mr X and his neighbours, after a site visit, the Council had also agreed changes to how its collection crews would work along Mr X’s road. Aside from the problem in August 2020, those changes had been successful. On the evidence, I found what happened in August 2020 was a ‘one off’ mistake.
27. Mr X wanted the Council to better organise and manage its bin collection service and address RCV breakdowns and staff shortages. The evidence showed the Council was addressing these issues and there were no specific service improvements I might reasonably and properly recommend given the Council’s own modernisation programme. For Mr X, the Council’s decision to ‘walk the bins’ and its use of a ‘small’ RCV addressed the problem with repeat missed collections along his road. I therefore found the Council’s offer to send Mr X a written apology a reasonable and proportionate way to address any remaining injustice arising from its repeated failures to empty his bins.

Agreed action

28. Given the services changes made for Mr X’s road (see paragraph 23), to put right any remaining injustice to Mr X, the Council agreed to send Mr X a written apology. The apology would cover both the poor service Mr X received and the Council’s failure to update him about changes to his collection days. The Council agreed to send the apology with 10 working days of this decision statement and to provide a copy of it to the Ombudsman.
29. The Council also agreed to write to apologise to Mr X’s neighbours about its failure to tell them about changes to collection days. This was an appropriate step and good practice. The Council also agreed to send the Ombudsman a copy of that letter with a list of the relevant addresses or addressees.

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Final decision

30. I completed my investigation, finding fault causing injustice, when the Council agreed the recommendations at paragraphs 28 and 29.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman