Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint about the Council’s garden waste service. This is because the injustice she has suffered is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs B, complained that the Council told her she could not cancel her annual 2020/21 subscription to its garden waste service, which was due to start 12 days later, because it was too late, her payment was going through. Mrs B said the Council failed to refund her for missed garden waste collections or tell her it had resumed the service.

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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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered the information Mrs B provided and her comments on my draft decision.

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What I found

4. People living in the Council’s area can join its garden waste recycling scheme. This currently costs a little under £60 per annum if people pay by direct debit. The service is on a twelve-month non-refundable basis. The Council normally carries out garden waste collections every fortnight.
5. Mrs B complained about the non-refundable basis for the Council’s service. She told us she considers the Council obtained her money under false pretences. She said it is probably illegal. Mrs B told us the Council’s actions have had an impact on how she now pays her bills. The Ombudsman cannot rule on legal matters such as contract grace periods and whether a policy is illegal. A court of law is the appropriate body to make rulings on such matters ultimately. We do not have powers to investigate allegations of criminal activity such as obtaining money under false pretences.
6. The Council did not collect Mrs B’s garden waste on the date the collection was due in early April 2020. She contacted the Council on the following day. The Council told her it had suspended the service. Mrs B then said she wanted to cancel her subscription for 2020/21. The Council records calls so Mrs B asked for a recording of the call. She told us the Council was unable to extract the recording of her call from its system. That means we would not be able to establish exactly what was said during the conversation.
7. Mrs B told us the date she tried to cancel her subscription was twelve days before the annual renewal date. But she said the Council had told her it was too late for her to cancel her direct debit. She told us the Council’s officer had said the Council would contact her when the service resumed but did not say this would be done by placing the information on its website. Mrs B told us she did not leave her home because of her vulnerability during the Covid 19 pandemic. When she contacted the Council in May 2020, due to a change in the government’s guidance on returning to work, she found out the Council had resumed the service in mid-April without her knowledge. By that time she had not had the benefit of four garden waste collections. Mrs B told us she built up a backlog of garden waste and was unable to attend to her garden as she had wanted to.
8. When the Council replied to Mrs B’s complaint it said it had not been possible to notify directly all subscribers of the changes to its garden waste service because of the high number of subscribers, the limited number of staff at work and the need to maintain essential council services. The Council apologised for the suspension of its service for a short time. It said it had put daily updates about its waste collection services on its website and its telephone contact centre had remained open. But Mrs B has told us she hardly ever uses the internet. She said the Council has a list of paying customers so, if one of those customers had not put out their bin for collection, the Council should have put a note through the door about the resumption of its service.
9. The Council has said it will extend all active garden waste subscriptions by four weeks and it would apply this to Mrs B’s subscription in April 2021.
10. Mrs B is seeking a refund of the full amount she has paid for the garden waste service for the current year. She said the Council had lied to her, bullied her and took advantage of her because it was only necessary for her to give one day’s notice to cancel a direct debit.
11. The Ombudsman’s role is to consider complaints of injustice caused by fault by a Council. While Mrs B’s reasons for complaining are understandable, in each individual case, we must reach our own judgement on whether the level of injustice a complainant has suffered has reached a high enough level to justify investigating their complaint. Mrs B has lost the benefit four garden waste collections would have given her while still having to pay the full sum for this year’s service which she had wanted to cancel. But this is not a significant enough level of injustice to justify our involvement in her complaint.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the injustice the complainant has suffered is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman