Bury Metropolitan Borough Council (21 006 387)

Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 08 May 2022

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Mr E complained the Council has failed to provide enough bins for his estate. He also says the Council did not adequately respond to his complaints and it unreasonably banned him from contacting the waste management team. We find the Council was at fault as it delayed responding to Mr E’s communication and it failed to adequately respond to his complaint. The Council has agreed to our recommendations to address the injustice caused by fault.

The complaint

  1. Mr E complained the Council has failed to provide enough bins for his estate. He also says the Council did not adequately respond to his complaints and it unreasonably banned him from contacting the waste management team.
  2. Mr E says the Council’s failures have led to piles of rubbish, horrible smells, and an increase in vermin. He also says the Council’s complaints process has caused him frustration.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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)
  2. 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

  1. I considered information Mr E submitted with his complaint. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered information it sent in response.
  2. Mr E and the Council 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

Refuse and recycling collections

  1. Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to collect household waste and recycling from properties in their area. The collections do not have to be weekly, and councils can decide the type of bins or boxes people must use.
  2. The Council’s policy is that if all the bins on the street have not been emptied, residents should leave their bins out. The Council aims to come back the next day or as soon as possible afterwards.
  3. The Council will not empty the bins if the wrong items are in them.

The Council’s habitual or vexatious complainant procedure

  1. This procedure sets out how the Council deals with and responds to unreasonable and unreasonably persistent complainants.
  2. A vexatious complainant is usually someone who contentiously raises a complaint without grounds to cause annoyance or disruption.
  3. A persistent complainant is someone who contacts the Council and raises the same complaint or similar complaints many times. The Council defines many times as more than three separate occasions. Examples include:
  • Persistently approaching the Council through different routes about the same issue.
  • Making an unreasonable number of contacts with the Council, by any means, in relation to a specific complaint or complaints.
  • Making persistent and unreasonable demands or expectations of council employees and/or the complaint process after the unreasonableness has been explained to the complainant - an example of this could be a complainant who insists on immediate responses to numerous, frequent and/or complex letters, telephone calls or emails.
  1. When an employee feels that one or more of the criteria listed above are met, they should discuss the matter with their Line Manager and/or Service Manager. The Service Manager should send a letter to the complainant/correspondent notifying them that the Council has fully responded to them on the matter and there is nothing more to add.
  2. Should the complainant continue to contact the Council then the matter should be referred to the appropriate Assistant Director for a decision on what further action to take.
  3. Once a decision has been made by an Assistant Director, Management Team or Council Solicitor, the complainant/correspondent should be notified by letter.

What happened

  1. Mr E has experienced problems with the refuse and recycling collections in his local area for a while. He contacted the Council in August 2020 and said it had only emptied some, and not all, of the recycling bins. There are no records to suggest the Council did anything to investigate the issues.
  2. Mr E called the Council again in October and December. He said he was not happy it was not emptying all the bins. He also said it was not providing enough bins for the residents on his estate. Finally, it said the Council had not contacted him about the issues.
  3. Mr E called the Council on 12 January 2021 and reiterated the previous issues. The Council responded to his complaint on 4 February and said the problems were mainly due to residents not recycling properly. It also said it would increase the collection of non-recycling waste from fortnightly to weekly to resolve the issues.
  4. Mr E referred his complaint to stage two of the Council’s complaints procedure on 11 July. He said residents could not recycle properly due to a lack of capacity. He also said the Council had failed to address the main issue of his complaint, which was why it had reduced the bin capacity and why it had done nothing about it. Finally, he said the officer he had dealt with (Officer A) closed his complaint and she was rude and dismissive.
  5. The Council issued its stage two response on 28 July. It said because of the COVID-19 pandemic residents were creating more waste and so it increased the number of general waste bins from 10 to 12. It said because it was providing a weekly general waste collection, it could exchange the extra general waste bins to five recycling bins. It also said the management company could purchase more recycling bins, but there was not enough space on site, and residents would misuse them.
  6. The Executive Director at the Council emailed Mr E on 3 August. She said it was important communication remained respectful. She said she had read the correspondence between him and Officer A and there had been a breakdown in communication. She told Mr E not to contact Officer A directly, but he could contact the customer contact team or the interim head of waste. She said the arrangement was in place for six months.

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Analysis

  1. The Council was slow to respond to Mr E and investigate his concerns. This is fault. Mr E repeatedly raised the same issues from August 2020 to January 2021. The Council only responded to Mr E and started dealing with the matter from February 2021 onwards. This fault caused Mr E an injustice as he was put to time and trouble in repeating the same issues.
  2. The Council says it increased the general waste collection to weekly rather than fortnightly after Mr E raised his concerns. It also increased the general waste bins. It says the residents on Mr E’s estate are under capacity for recycling, but it is reluctant to provide more recycling facilities due to the contamination in the recycling bins.
  3. Mr E says residents cannot recycle properly because there are not enough bins. He says if the Council provides more bins, it will resolve the issues. Both Mr E and the Council have provided me with photographs which highlight the continuing issues.
  4. It is clear the issues have not been resolved, and there are differing opinions between Mr E and the Council about the cause of the issue. The Council says it is trying to organise a meeting with the management company for Mr E’s estate to discuss how to improve waste and recycling collections and to agree expectations. I recommend the Council arranges this meeting to address the continuing issues.
  5. Mr E says the Council failed to respond adequately to his complaints. He wrote a detailed stage two complaint. The Council’s stage two response failed to address majority of the issues he raised. This is fault which caused him frustration and I understand why he believes the Council did not want to take his concerns seriously.
  6. Mr E says the Council unreasonably banned him from the contacting the waste management team. The Council did not ban Mr E from contacting the waste management team, but it told him not to contact Officer A directly. He was free to contact the customer contact team and the interim head of waste. The Council told Mr E this was due to a breakdown in communication between him and Officer A and it was concerned his correspondence was no longer respectful.
  7. The Council has not been able to provide me with the correspondence between Mr E and Officer A, and therefore I cannot form a judgement on whether it was appropriate for it to apply restrictions on Mr E’s contact. However, the Council has not followed its policy on vexatious complainants. The policy says the Service Manager should write to the complainant in the first instance. This did not happen in Mr E’s case as the Executive Director contacted him. While this is fault, I do not consider this caused Mr E a significant injustice as the Council’s position would have been the same whichever member of staff contacted him.
  8. Finally, Mr E says he wants the Council to adhere to its service standards. The service standards he is referring to applies to a neighbouring authority, and not the Council. Therefore, the Council is not obliged to follow it.

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Agreed action

  1. To address the injustice caused by fault, by 9 June 2022 the Council has agreed to:
  • Apologise to Mr E.
  • Pay him £150 to reflect his time and trouble and frustration.
  1. By 7 August 2022:
  • Attend a meeting with the management company to discuss a way forward regarding the continuing issues with the waste and recycling collections on Mr E’s estate. The Council should provide me with evidence of the outcome of this meeting and any action points.
  • Issue written reminders to relevant staff to ensure they are aware complaint responses must address the issues raised.

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Final decision

  1. There was fault by the Council, which caused Mr E an injustice. The Council has agreed to my recommendations and so I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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