Summary: Mrs X complains the Council repeatedly failed to collect her household waste on the scheduled day for five months, despite routinely collecting her neighbours’ waste. The repeated failings in the Council’s assisted collection service amount 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 repeatedly failed to collect her household waste between December 2019 and May 2020, despite routinely collecting her neighbours’ waste.
2. Mrs X also complains the Council’s responses to her complaint were generic and did not explain why her waste was not collected; or resolve the problem.

Back to top

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. 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

5. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mrs X;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• discussed the complaint 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.

Back to top

What I found

Refuse and recycling collections

6. 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.
7. The Council's practice is to make a weekly household waste collection and a fortnightly recycling collection.
8. The Council provides an assisted collection service for people who are unable to move their bins and boxes due to a disability or age. The Council should collect the bins from the storage point and return them to the same point.
9. 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

10. Mrs X complains that although she should receive an assisted collection service, the Council repeatedly failed to collect her household waste on the scheduled days. The Council routinely collected Mrs X’s recycling, and collected her neighbours’ household waste, but repeatedly failed to collect Mrs X’s household waste for approximately five months.
11. Mrs X has previously complained to the Ombudsman about problems with the assisted collection service in 2018 and 2019. To remedy this complaint the Council agreed to monitor Mrs X’s household waste and recycling collections. Mrs X states this led to an improvement in service for a few months, but the Council began to miss collections again in late December 2019.
12. The Council’s and Mrs X’s own records show Mrs X reported 10 missed household waste collection between December 2019 and May 2020. Some of these collections were completed on the next scheduled collection date. In other cases, there were consecutive missed collection with gaps of three or four weeks between collections.
13. As well as reporting the missed collections, Mrs X also made several complaints to the Council about the poor assisted collection service. In response to each complaint the Council confirmed it had reminded the crew to make the collection, and it passed all except the first complaint to the service manager.
14. Mrs X questioned how many times she would have to complain about missed collections before the Council resolved the problem. The service did not improve until May 2020 when the Council confirmed it would remind the crew again and monitor the collections.
15. Mrs X has asked the Ombudsman to investigate her complaint as she is dubious about how long the improved service will last. 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. It has confirmed that Mrs X has assisted collection status. It states the missed collections were due to the household collection crew not following the assisted collection process.
16. The Council states that to improve its effectiveness the depot has recently streamlined how it presents assisted collection information to the crews. This makes it more user friendly and easier to brief crews when they are required to cover absences. The Council suggests this change has resolved the issue as Mrs X has not reported a missed collection since 18 May 2020.
17. The Council has arranged to monitor Mrs X’s household waste collections for three months.

Analysis

18. It is clear from the Council’s records that it has repeatedly failed to collect Mrs X’s household waste. These failings in the assisted collection service amount to fault.
19. It is particularly disappointing that these failings in service began again so soon after the Council completed the monitoring following Mrs X’s previous complaint. This monitoring and the repeated reminders to collect Mrs X’s bins should have ensured there were no further problems. It is of concern that the improvement in service was so short lived and Mrs X has had to make a further complaint.
20. I recognise the service has now improved and that the Council is again monitoring Mrs X’s collections. I would expect this to ensure the improvement in service is maintained and there are no further lapses.
21. I also consider there to be fault in the way the Council responded to Mrs X’s complaints. The Council repeatedly assured her it had spoken to the collection crew but did not address her concerns or explain why her collections were missed. Despite escalating the complaint to the service manager and reminding the crew, the service did not improve, and the missed collections continued for five months.
22. Having identified fault, I must now consider whether this has caused Mrs X an injustice. Mrs X has again had to find ways to manage the uncollected household waste left at her property. She has also experienced frustration and disappointment, at the recurrence of the missed collections so soon after the Council had stopped monitoring the service. Mrs X has been put to unnecessary time and trouble by the Council’s failure to resolve the problem.

Agreed action

23. The Council has agreed to apologise to Miss X and pay her £200 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the further failure to make regular assisted household waste collections has caused.
24. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.

Back to top

Final decision

25. The repeated failings in the Council’s assisted collection service amount to fault. This fault has caused Mrs X an injustice.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman