Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s missed bin collections. This is because the Council has provided a suitable remedy for Mr X.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council failed to empty his black bin on several occasions in 2020. He says his wife had to take their rubbish to her mother’s house to put in her bin.

Back to top

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, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• the Council has offered a suitable remedy for the complaint.

(Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6), 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I reviewed Mr X’s complaint and the Council’s responses. I shared my draft decision with Mr X and invited his comments.

Back to top

What I found

4. Mr X complained to the Council about his missed black bin collection in September 2020. He said the Council had also failed to collect his refuse in April 2020 and says the service is not fit for purpose.
5. The Council apologised for its error and agreed to send someone to his property to ensure there were no issues which may prevent its operatives from emptying his bin next time. It also confirmed its understanding that the missed bin was collected after Mr X reported the issue but Mr X suggests his wife had to transport their waste elsewhere for collection.
6. The Council’s actions provide a suitable remedy for Mr X’s injustice and it is unlikely we would recommend anything further for him. In the event the Council continues to miss his bin collections he should report these in the usual way and ask the Council to come back to empty his bin. If the missed collections become regular Mr X may raise a further complaint. But Mr X refers to only two missed collections so far in 2020 and his injustice from these incidents is not significant enough to warrant our further investigation at this time.
7. Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

Back to top

Final decision

8. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council has provided a suitable remedy for Mr X’s complaint and it is unlikely we would recommend anything more.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman