Summary: Miss X complains the Council failed to collect food waste on multiple occasions and reported incorrectly on its website. We find fault with the Council. It will apologise to Miss X and pay her £200 for her time and trouble reporting the issues.

The complaint

1. The complainant whom I shall refer to as Miss X, complains for herself and on behalf of residents in her block. She says:

• The Council’s contractor (Veolia) repeatedly failed to collect food waste from her block of flats between May 2020 and April 2021.
• The Council’s website incorrectly reported the collections as complete.

2. Miss X says the waste caused an offensive smell and was unsightly. She also says this caused a financial loss because the residents had to pay for private waste disposal services. She says she experienced frustration and inconvenience while reporting collections and going through the Council’s complaints process.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. Miss X complained to us in September 2021, which is 15 months after she first became aware of the issue. However, I have decided to investigate as our services were closed for three months between March and May 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The alleged injustice has also continued for more than a year.
5. 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)
6. 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)
7. The Council contracted with Veolia to provide commercial waste collection on its behalf. We can therefore investigate Veolia.
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 the information and documents provided by Miss X and the Council. I spoke to Miss X about her complaint.
10. I considered relevant legislation, guidance and the information available on the Council’s website.
11. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered the comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Law, guidance and policy

12. The Council’s procedure is to provide a weekly collection of food waste for residents who must place food waste in dedicated bins.
13. If a collection is missed, residents must report it within two working days starting at 10am on the day of collection on the Council’s website.
14. If the collection was missed by mistake, Veolia will return the next working day. If Veolia is unable to collect for some other reason, they will provide reasons and pictures if appropriate.

What happened

15. Miss X told me the residents from her block have an association which pays the Council for food waste collection. The association uses a gardening and maintenance man (caretaker) when necessary.
16. The block has a metal storage cabinet for food waste. Miss X said the cabinet’s inner plastic wheelie bin went missing in 2020, but the Council did not replace it. Food waste continued to be left inside the metal cabinet which was not collected for a long time.
17. Miss X said the caretaker reported the issue to the Council, and it provided a replacement wheelie bin. Miss X said the association paid the caretaker £40 to clean the cabinet, dispose of rotting food waste and install the wheelie bin. She said this was necessary as the Council did not remove the food waste in the cabinet or install the new bin.
18. The Council’s records show:
• a waste report by Miss X on 4 February 2020 which was not completed until 11 February. But the record states the delay was due to an access issue and relates to bulky waste, so it is unclear if this matter concerned food waste.
• three residents from Miss X’s block reported missed food waste collections in May, September, and December 2020. It confirms the collections were later completed.
19. In February 2021, Miss X tried to report a missed collection online, but could not access the website. She eventually spoke to a Council officer who said a collection would be arranged within 2 working days.
20. When this did not happen, Miss X emailed her Councillor to highlight the problem. She included photos of the bins and food waste. She told the Councillor it was unfair that the residents were now paying for private disposal services. The Councillor referred the matter to the waste management team who eventually removed the build-up.
21. In May, Miss X noticed further missed collections. She reported these online and emailed the Councillor again expressing frustration. Miss X explained the crew only collected when prompted which was time consuming for everyone. Miss X urged the Council to take a more pro-active approach with Veolia and investigate the situation.
22. The Council’s records indicate Miss X reported missed collections each month between February and August and in November 2021. Another resident also reported in February and March around the same time as Miss X. The Council believes these reports were for the same missed collections reported by Miss X.
23. The Council records state the waste was collected within 24 hours of Miss X’s reports.
24. However, Miss X escalated four of the missed collections in 2021 by directly emailing the Council. These email exchanges suggest it may have taken longer to arrange for collection than reflected in the Council’s records. But it is difficult to establish the extent of the delay for each report.

Complaints to the Council

25. The Council’s first response to the complaint apologised for poor service and said the Veolia supervisor would address the issue at a meeting with the crew.
26. Miss X told the complaints team that further collections were missed. She also noticed the Council’s website reported collections as complete even when the crew failed to remove food waste.
27. Miss X provided the Council with photos and a screenshot of the website. The Council’s complaints team agreed to investigate again. Miss X’s emails indicate the website reported incorrectly on at least three occasions.
28. In its stage 2 response the Council:

• Apologised for the missed collections reported in May and June 2020.
• Explained that staff absences, a change in crew and a breakdown in communication between the management and crew had caused the issue.
• Said that in the absence of the usual crew, a temporary crew were mistakenly collecting a household bin instead of a communal one. The website was therefore saying the food waste collection had taken place when it had not. It apologised for this oversight.
• Agreed to provide feedback to Veolia’s service leader with a copy of its stage 2 response letter and to implement a period of monitoring.
• Offered Miss X £25 for her time and trouble.

29. After the response, Miss X sent the Council evidence of a further missed collection and photographs of a maggot infestation.
30. Miss X remained unhappy and came to us in September 2021.

Comments from the Council

31. The Council told me:
• It monitored the collections from July 2020 and a manager conducted a site visit.
• During the inspection, the manager discovered temporary crews did not have a key to the block’s bin storage areas. The procedure was changed to ensure keys were supplied to all crews. A follow up visit was also completed to check compliance.
32. The Council provided a spreadsheet of all household, food waste and recycling collections from Miss X’s address from June 2021 to February 2022. This shows only two missed collections of food waste for reasons out of the crew’s control.

Comments from Miss X

33. Miss X told me the residents’ association paid the caretaker £240 between 2020-2021 to dispose food waste due to the Council’s failure. She wants the Council to reimburse the association for these costs.
34. Miss X provided a signed, undated statement from her and a co-chair of the association as evidence of this payment. The statement says the caretaker charged the residents for 30 minutes a week for 48 weeks at £10 per hour for waste cleaning and disposal services. However, it does not give any dates or further details of the tasks done.

Was there fault?

i) Veolia regularly failed to collect communal food waste between May 2020 and April 2021.

35. The records show three missed food waste collections from Miss X’s flats in 2020 which were later completed.
36. I do not consider three isolated missed collections in seven month amounts to fault or significant injustice to Miss X or others.
37. The records show the Council failed to collect food waste on 8 occasions over six months in 2021. This is a significant number of missed collections and was fault. It caused Miss X frustration and inconvenience as she had to spend time reporting the issue on each occasion, sending follow up emails, and monitoring the situation.
38. The Council apologised for some of these missed collections and implemented a period of monitoring. It also resolved crew access issues which were affecting collections. This was a partial remedy.

ii) The Council’s website incorrectly reported collections were completed.

39. The Council admitted the reporting issue was due to a temporary crew who were unfamiliar with the collection round. They mistakenly collected household rubbish from the block and not the communal food waste. The website was then updated to reflect these collections.

40. I appreciate the Council’s explanation of human error. Its services were under pressure due to staff absence and miscommunication between the management and crew.
41. However, it has a duty to ensure crews are suitably managed, have clear instructions and information published on its website is accurate. Its failure to do this was fault which led to erroneous reports. This caused Miss X frustration and inconvenience of having to report the issue.

Did the fault cause injustice?

42. Miss X said the residents’ association spent money on private food waste disposal and cleaning. Because of the lack of dated invoices, it is not clear if the money paid was for waste disposal and cleansing because of the missed collections or for general cleaning and maintenance unrelated to the Council’s fault. So, I am not satisfied on a balance of probabilities that the residents’ association incurred costs because of the Council’s fault. However, Miss X suffered avoidable inconvenience and time and trouble in repeatedly reporting the matter through the website, to officers, her councillor and as a complaint.

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Agreed action

43. The Council has agreed, within a month of this decision to take the following action:
• Write to Miss X to apologise for the identified faults.
• Pay Miss X £200 to recognise her avoidable inconvenience and time and trouble

Final decision

44. I find fault with the Council for:

• failing to collect Miss X’s food waste according to its own policy.
• failing to ensure its website reflected waste collection accurately.

45. These faults caused Miss X avoidable inconvenience and time and trouble. The Council should take the action I have recommended in the previous section to remedy the injustice.
46. I have completed my investigation.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman