Summary: Mr X complained the Council repeatedly failed to collect his garden waste bin and food waste bin. Mr X says he complained to the Council many times, but the Council failed to resolve the problem. The Ombudsman found fault with the Council. The Council agreed to provide Mr X with an apology and £100 in recognition of the avoidable time and trouble he experienced by having to report the missed collections. The Council also agreed to pay Mr X £6.63 to reflect the missed green waste collections which the Council did not rearrange collection for within two working days.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council repeatedly failed to collect his garden waste bin and food waste bin. Mr X says the Council tells him to leave the bins out, but these are often not collected until the next collection date.
2. Mr X says he paid extra for the garden waste service and the Council failed to provide this service.
3. Mr X says he complained to the Council many times, but the Council failed to resolve the problem. Mr X says the Council told him it resolved the problem in October 2020 despite him raising a new complaint about repeat failures to collect the bins in December 2020.

Back to top

What I have investigated

4. I have investigated Mr X’s complaints about the Council failing to collect his bins from the start of 2020.
5. I have not investigated Mr X’s complaint about the Council failing to collect his bins before the start of 2020. I have explained this within the section of this decision titled “Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate”.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

6. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
7. 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)
8. 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

9. I have considered all the information Mr X provided. I have also asked the Council questions and requested information, and in turn have considered the Council’s response.
10. Mr X and the Council accepted my draft decision so I have reached my final decision.

Back to top

What I found

Household Waste and Recycling Collections

11. 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.
12. Thanet Council collects general waste and recycling fortnightly in an alternating pattern. In some areas it offers a food collection service that it collects weekly.

Reporting Missed Collections

13. The Council’s website asks that a person not report a missed collection until after 4pm on the scheduled collection date.
14. The Council’s website says it will only collect a missed bin if a person reports this by the end of the next working day after the Council was due to collect it. Otherwise, it collects the bin on the next scheduled collection.
15. Residents can report missed collections either on-line or by telephone. The Council records missed collections on a customer contact record that links to the Council’s waste collection records. The record shows when the resident reported the missed collection and when the Council completed the rescheduled collection.
16. If a resident reports more than one missed collection, the Council considers it as a complaint. The Council runs a two-stage complaints procedure. If a person remains unhappy after its stage two response it directs them to the Ombudsman.

Garden Waste Service

17. The Council provides an optional green waste collection service. Residents must purchase a Council specific bin at a one-off cost of £35.00. They must then pay an annual subscription for their green waste collection of £53.00.
18. The Council collects this waste fortnightly all year except for a month between mid-December until mid-January. This amounts to 24 collections per year costing £2.21 per collection.
19. A resident should report a missed collection by 5pm the working day after the collection date. The Council says it will collect the reported missed collection within two working days.

Impact of Covid-19

20. The Council’s website says it will prioritise collection of general waste and food waste collections because of the impact of Covid-19 on the service.
21. The Council’s website says some recycling collections and green waste services may be impacted due to staff shortages, but it is monitoring the situation.

What Happened

22. The Council missed collections for Mr X’s brown bin, waste food collection, on 10 April 2020, 22 May 2020 and 3 July 2020. Mr X reported each missed collection to the Council. The Council also missed collections for Mr X’s green bin, green waste, on 29 May 2020 and 25 June 2020.
23. The Council collected Mr X’s missed green bin on 3 June 2020 and 26 June 2020 respectively, but failed to collect the missed brown bin until 9 July 2020.
24. Mr X complained to the Council on 6 July 2020 about repeated missed bin collections. Mr X also reported a further missed green bin collection on 9 July 2020. The Council collected this bin on 16 July 2020.
25. The Council provided its Stage 1 complaint response on 14 July 2020. The Council apologised to Mr X for the issues experienced. The Council said it had hired temporary staff during the Covid-19 pandemic and this had impacted bin collections. The Council said it had issued maps to bin collectors and told supervisors to oversee the situation. The Council said it was struggling to meet the demand for the garden waste collection and was looking to introduce a second collection round.
26. The Council missed Mr X’s brown bin collection on 11 September 2020. Mr X complained to the Council again about missed collections.
27. The Council collected Mr X’s brown bin on 15 September 2020 and sent him a copy of its Stage 1 response again on 16 September 2020.
28. Mr X complained to the Council the previous steps the Council took had not improved the bin collection situation.
29. The Council sent Mr X a Stage 2 complaint response on 26 October 2020. The Council acknowledged the continuing issues for Mr X. The Council said it had asked the collection crew to take pictures of the emptied brown bin and their supervisor would sign this for the following six weeks. The Council said it hoped this would resolve the matter but, if not, Mr X could approach the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (the Ombudsman).
30. The Council missed Mr X’s green bin collection on 12 November 2020. The Council collected Mr X’s green bin on 17 November 2020.
31. The Council then missed Mr X’s brown bin on 4 December 2020. Mr X complained to the Council who advised Mr X it had completed its complaints procedure and directed Mr X to the Ombudsman.
32. Mr X complained about further missed collections of his brown bin on 11 December 2020 and 19 December 2020. The Council attended Mr X’s property on 11 December 2020 to discuss where he presents his bins for collection. The Council collected Mr X’s brown bin on 29 December 2020.
33. Mr X complained to the Ombudsman in January 2021. Since this point the Council missed Mr X’s brown bin collection on 26 February 2021 and 21 May 2021. The Council collected the bins on 5 March 2021 and 24 May 2021 respectively.

Analysis

Food Waste Collection

34. The Council stated that during the COVID-19 pandemic, it had to change its food waste collection service to stand-alone vehicles with different crews. It acknowledged that caused some disruption to service delivery because the crews were unfamiliar with the food waste rounds. It said it issued crews detailed maps and instructions to record collections issues. Waste supervisors reviewed the records after the collection to resolve any collection issues.
35. The Council accepted it has failed to collect Mr X’s brown bin eight times since the start of 2020. This was fault. This fault has put Mr X to the avoidable time and trouble of having to report missed collections to the Council.
36. The Council has also failed to arrange suitable attempts to collect Mr X’s brown bin after missing a collection. The Council has only arranged to collect Mr X’s brown bin outside the normal collection schedule on two occasions out of eight reported missed collections. This was fault. This fault caused Mr X added inconvenience by having longer time periods between bin collections.
37. The Council has advised it has moved back to collecting brown bins alongside its normal general waste collection since the end of the third Covid-19 lockdown in March 2019. The Council has only missed one brown bin collection since this point. It arranged a suitable catch-up collection for this missed bin collection. This shows the Council has already taken steps to improve both the reliability of the initial collections and speed of catch-up collections. I consider this suitably remedies the cause of the fault.

Garden Waste Collection

38. The Council advised on its website the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted its green waste collection services.
39. The Council accepted it has failed to collect Mr X’s green bin four times during 2020. This was fault.
40. The Council’s policy says if it misses a green bin collection it will arrange to collect the missed bin within two working days. The Council only collected Mr X’s green bin within two working days on one occasion out of four reported missed collections. This was also fault.
41. Although green bin collection is not a statutory service, it is reasonable for residents to expect to receive a service they pay for.
42. The Council has moved the responsibility for the garden waste service to its commercial waste section since it is a paid for service. The Council says it did this with the view to improving customer service. The Council’s last missed green bin collection for Mr X was in November 2020. This shows the steps the Council took have improved the reliability of this service for Mr X.

Agreed action

43. Within one month of the Ombudsman’s final decision the Council has agreed to:
• Apologise to Mr X and pay him £100 for the avoidable time and trouble he has experienced by having to report missed green and brown bin collections to the Council.
• Pay Mr X £6.63 to reflect the missed garden waste collections which it did not arrange to re-collect within two working days.

Back to top

Final decision

44. There was fault by the Council as the Council has agreed to my recommendations, I have completed my investigation.

Back to top

Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

45. I did not investigate Mr X’s complaint the Council failed to collect his bins before the start of 2020.
46. The Ombudsman cannot investigate issues when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us without good reason. Mr X complained to the Ombudsman in January 2021.
47. Mr X was aware of the issues with his bin collections in 2019 and reported these to the Council. There is no good reason for the Ombudsman to investigate missed bin collections before 2020 since Mr X did not bring these to the attention of the Ombudsman sooner.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman