Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the complainant’s request for a sturdier rubbish bin. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, complains the Council will not give her a heavier rubbish bin. She wants the Council to give her a bin which will not blow over in the wind.

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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 an investigation if we believe it is unlikely we would find fault. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I read the complaint and the Council’s responses. I considered comments Mrs X made in reply to a draft of this decision.

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What I found

Bins

4. The law says councils can decide the type of bin residents must use.

What happened

5. Mrs X had had the same bin for 19 years. The bin was broken during a collection and the Council gave Mrs X a new bin. Mrs X says the new bin is lighter, less strong, and prone to blow over when it is windy. She says the lid is flimsy and blows open. Mrs X asked the Council to give her a stronger bin, like the one she previously had.
6. In response the Council explained the bin it currently provides has been in use for many years and meets the required standard. It said it had not received complaints about the bins from anyone else. It said the old bins were heavier but the current bins are made from a lighter recycled material. The Council checked if it had any of the old bins in storage but it did not. The Council said it could not give Mrs X a different bin but it suggested she could keep the bin in her garden, behind a gate, so there would be less chance of it blowing into the road. The Council said it could not agree to Mrs X’s suggestion to paint a garden waste bin, which is heavier, so Mrs X could use it as her rubbish bin. The Council also suggested Mrs X could keep the bin in her garage.
7. Mrs X says she cannot keep the bin in her garden as it might blow into the fields at the back of her house and she would be unable to retrieve it. And, she cannot keep it in the garage because vermin enter the garage from the fields. Mrs X maintains the Council should give her a bin which is similar to the old bin.

Assessment

8. I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council. The law says the Council can decide what type of bin to provide. The Council has provided Mrs X with the type of bin it has used for many years, which meets the required standards and which it provides to all residents. The current bin is lighter than the old bin but that does not mean the Council has done anything wrong. Further, it is not uncommon for bins to blow over in the wind and the rules do not say councils must provide bins which never blow over or have their lids lifted. In addition, the Council has offered suggestions to Mrs X, of alternative storage locations, which would help ease her concerns about the bin blowing onto road or the lid blowing open.
9. Mrs X has repeated that the Council could let her use the heavier garden waste bin. Mrs X says the Council refused on the grounds that other people would want to do the same. Mrs X says this is an untruthful response because the Council had told her that nobody else had complained about the bins. This is not, in my view, a case of the Council being untruthful. But, rather, if the Council allowed Mrs X to have a bespoke bin it might encourage other people to want to change how the bins are used, and this could result in extra work for the Council. The Council has to treat everyone fairly and if it allowed Mrs X to use the garden bin for waste then it would have to allow similar requests from other people. And, as I have said, the Council is allowed to decide the type of bin people must use and it is not wrong for the Council not to allow people to deviate from that requirement.
10. Mrs X disagrees with the Council’s response but this disagreement does not mean the Council has done anything wrong. We do not act as an appeal body and we cannot intervene simply because a council does not do what someone would like it to do.

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Final decision

11. I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman