Summary: Although the Council experienced a significant number of challenges to its refuse collection service over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains at fault for failing to empty Ms B’s bins on a number of occasions over a two-year period. This meant she had to go to the time and trouble of repeatedly reporting missed collections, which caused her an injustice. This injustice was compounded because the Council’s failings disproportionately affected its assisted collection service, which Ms B receives because she is disabled. The Council has now fixed Ms B’s collection problems; however, it has also agreed to apologise, provide a payment of £200 to recognise Ms B’s injustice, and ensure our findings are shared as part of its ongoing contract review with its refuse collection provider.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Ms B, has multiple sclerosis. Because of this, she receives assisted bin collections from the Council. This means she does not have to present her bins at kerbside for collection – the collection crews collect her bins from outside her home, empty them and return them.
2. Ms B complains that she has had consistent problems with her bin collections since March 2020. She says the Council has frequently failed to either collect or return the bins, or it has left them some distance away from her home.
3. Ms B says that, before approaching the Ombudsman, she reported collection issues to the Council over 30 times. She says the Council monitored her collections for a while, but the issues continued.
4. After a further period of monitoring in the middle of 2021, Ms B says the Council has failed to collect her bins five times and failed to return them four times. On one occasion, she says, her bin was left 75 feet away from her home. On another, she says a member of the collection crew was caught on her security camera swearing and complaining about her assisted collections.
5. Although the company which collects Ms B’s bins is a private contractor, it does so on behalf of the Council. As a result, the body I am ultimately investigating is the Council.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

6. 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)
7. We investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. Where an individual, organisation or private company is providing services on behalf of a council, we can investigate complaints about the actions of these providers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 25(7), as amended)
8. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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

9. I considered information from Ms B and the Council. Both 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

The Ombudsman’s 2020 report into the Council’s waste collections

10. We issued a report in March 2020 which found fault in six complaints about the Council’s waste collection service. We made multiple recommendations, including changes to the missed collection monitoring process and democratic oversight of the service improvements already put in place by the Council.

What happened

11. In early March 2020 the Council put Ms B on assisted collections. Her next two garden waste collections were missed, and she complained to the Council, which apologised.
12. Shortly after this the Council suspended all garden waste collections in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
13. In August 2020 – when the Council had re-started its garden waste collections – Ms B started experiencing problems again. The Council failed to collect her garden and household waste bins on more than one occasion, and she reported that on two occasions all of her neighbours’ bins were collected – just not hers.
14. Ms B made a further complaint about the missed collections. The Council responded, and said her address had erroneously been removed from its assisted collection list due to an administrative error. It fixed this mistake and said it would monitor her collections to ensure they improved.
15. The Council monitored Ms B’s collections from September 2020 to February 2021. During that period, only one garden waste collection was missed, and the collection supervisor ensured it was collected the following day.
16. This improvement continued until July 2021, when the Council failed to collect
    Ms B’s garden waste again. The same happened in September, and again in October. In November, it failed to collect her paper recycling. On each occasion, she reported the missed collection and said her bin was the only one on her street which had not been collected. On each occasion, the Council emptied the relevant bin within a week of receiving Ms B’s report.
17. In December, Ms B says the Council failed to return her bin to its proper place after emptying it. She also says she caught a collection crew member on her security camera swearing and complaining about her assisted collections. She did not report this to the Council.
18. In January 2022, Ms B reported that – again – the Council had collected all of her neighbours’ household waste bins, but not hers. It took the Council almost a fortnight – and two further reports from Ms B – to empty the bin.
19. Ms B says the Council then failed to return her bins to their correct location after collections on two occasions (in January and February). On the second occasion, she says the bin had been left 75 feet away from her property. However, she did not report these issues to the Council.
20. There have been no issues with Ms B’s collections since.

The Council’s position

21. The Council has acknowledged its failures in March and August 2020, which it says were due to administrative errors. It also says that any other problems experienced by Ms B in the past two years were caused by prolonged pandemic-related difficulties: its green bin collections only resumed in full in March 2021, and there was also a significant impact on staffing across the waste collection service more generally throughout the pandemic.
22. The Council says this led to collection crews being diverted to unfamiliar routes at short notice, often with new or agency staff. It says it made every effort to ensure these crews were given the right information in advance, but this was done at short notice and under significant pressure.
23. The Council says it struggled to ‘embed’ the service improvements it made around the time of the Ombudsman’s report in 2020 because the pandemic hit its services almost immediately afterwards. However, it says it has now managed to do this, which is proved by the fact that Ms B has experienced no collection problems for six months.
24. The Council says it is currently engaged in a formal contract review with its refuse collection provider. It says the experience of its customers will form a part of that review.

My findings

25. There is no doubt that, for significant periods of time over the past two years, the Council has faced unprecedented challenges to its bin collection services. I accept the Council’s description of those challenges and acknowledge the issues it experienced.
26. However, the COVID-19 pandemic – while a substantial mitigating factor – did not completely absolve the Council of its duties.
27. The Council has already accepted that it failed to collect Ms B’s bins several times in March and August 2020, which it attributes to an administrative error. But there have been more problems since then: it also failed to collect her bins, particularly her garden waste bin, five further times between July 2021 and January 2022.
28. This was fault by the Council. Although it clearly experienced staffing difficulties, the fact remains that Ms B, through no fault of her own, found she repeatedly had to go to the time and trouble of getting the Council to come back and empty her bins. This caused her an injustice. From her description of events, I also accept she was caused a great deal of frustration from having to do this on several occasions over a two-year period.
29. I have also found that, as a disabled person who was on assisted collections,
    Ms B was disproportionately affected by the Council’s service failures. This is because she was often the only person among her neighbours whose bins were not collected.
30. I accept the Council’s explanation about the difficulties it faced in properly preparing staff for unfamiliar routes while under significant pandemic-related pressures – which meant staff were not always fully aware of which properties received assisted collections. Nonetheless, I am satisfied that Ms B’s avoidable distress from the Council’s failings was compounded by the feeling that she was receiving a worse service because she is disabled.
31. In light of the unique challenges presented to the Council over the past two years, plus the fact that Ms B’s collection issues are now largely resolved, I have decided that a further public report is not necessary. However, the Council should still take action to remedy her injustice.

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Agreed actions

32. The Council has agreed to write to Ms B and apologise for its repeated bin collection failures over the past two years.
33. The Council has agreed to make a payment of £200 to recognise Ms B’s injustice.
34. The Council has also agreed to ensure that my findings are shared as part of its ongoing formal contract review with its refuse collection provider.
35. The Council has agreed to complete these actions within six weeks of this decision.

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Final decision

36. The Council was at fault for failing to collect Ms B’s bins on a number of occasions over a two-year period. The agreed actions remedy her injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman