Summary: Mr X complained the Council has routinely failed to collect his household waste and recycling on the scheduled day or in a timely manner when collections are missed, since he moved into his property in July 2019. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mr X’s household waste as scheduled amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mr X an injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X complained the Council has routinely failed to collect his household waste and recycling on the scheduled day or in a timely manner when collections are missed, since he moved into his property in July 2019.
2. Mr X complained that despite repeatedly reporting missed collections and making formal complaints, and the Council’s assurance the service will improve, the problem has continued.

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What I have investigated

3. Although Mr X complains about poor service over a number of years, I have only investigated events since January 2021.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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)
5. 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)
6. 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

7. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the information provided by Mr X;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council provided;
• discussed the issues with Mr X;
• Mr X 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

8. 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.
9. The Council's practice is to make a weekly household waste collection and a fortnightly recycling collection.
10. When a resident reports a missed collection, the Depot will ask the crew to return to complete the round as soon as possible. When the Council has completed the collection, it closes the report.

What happened here

11. Mr X moved into a properly on a newly built estate in 2019. He states there have been problems with missed collections across the entire estate since he moved in and the problem has got progressively worse. Mr X complains that around one in three household waste collections are missed, and on occasions there have been consecutive missed collections. He states he began formally reporting the missed collections last summer.
12. According to the Council’s records Mr X has reported nine missed household waste collections and two missed recycling collections since July 2021. The reports are all closed which indicates the Council has since made the missed collections. However, the dates these reports were closed are inconsistent and do not suggest the Council made the collections in a timely manner. The records also suggest the Council also missed other collections.
13. It took the Council around two weeks to close most reports, for example a missed household waste collection reported on 10 August 2021 was closed on 28 August 2021, and a report on 25 October 2021 was closed on 8 November 2021. It is unclear why, if the Council made the intervening scheduled collections, it did not close the reports a week earlier.
14. There are further inconsistencies in the records for more recent missed collections. Mr X reported a missed collection on 21 March 2022, which the Council closed on 20 April 2022. However Mr X also reported the collection scheduled for 18 April 2022 as missed, and at the time of responding to my enquiries this report was still open. It is unclear why the Council took so long to close the report of 21 March 2022, and why, if it made a collection on 20 April 2022, it did not also close the report of 18 April 2022 that day.
15. Mr X states he initially telephone the Council to complain about the poor service, but as this did not resolve matters he then made formal written complaints. In July 2021 Mr X complained the Council had missed two consecutive household waste collections. He stated the collection crew collected the waste from around a quarter of the estate before they drove off without finishing the job. He asked the Council to return to collect the remaining waste.
16. The Council’s response apologised for the problems with the waste collection service. It confirmed the depot was aware of the matter and that it had requested a further collection and for any excess waste to be cleared.
17. As the problems with missed collections continued, Mr X made a further complaint in October 2021. He complained the Council missed on average one collection each month and that when it missed two consecutive collections over the summer this led to a maggot infestation. Mr X was unhappy that when collections were missed the crews would not collect the excess waste that accumulated. He also complained the Council had not explained why his estate was so frequently affected by missed collections. It had instead given generic responses that did not address his concerns.
18. In its response the Council apologised for the continuing problems. It stated it was having operation issues relating to staff shortages and vehicle defects which were affecting the service. The Council also noted that Mr X’s street was on a new estate which, due to the volume, could not be assigned to an existing round. It had therefore been placed on an ‘additional’ round, which had been dropped several times over the last month. The Council stated it was endeavouring to stabilise the service and was recruiting new operatives. In addition, it confirmed the manager was aware of the complaints and would arrange a collection as soon as possible.
19. Mr X was not satisfied by the Council’s response and asked for his complaint to be considered further. He complained that having telephoned the number provided to escalate his complaint, he was initially misdirected to the wrong service and then told there was no escalation process and that he could not send a written response.
20. Mr X rejected the Council’s explanation for the missed collections. He noted the estate was built in 2019 and asserted the Council had had sufficient time since then to address the capacity issues. Mr X asked the Council to include his estate on a regular round as he was concerned that ‘additional’ rounds were deemed less important with collections more likely to be dropped. He also asked to be compensated for the poor service and the inconvenience this had caused.
21. The Council reviewed Mr X’s complaint in December 2021 and confirmed it had now routed Mr X’s estate to a regular crew, which should improve the service. It also shared a communication from senor management which apologised for the poor standard of service. This explained it had experienced localised disruption due to ongoing challenges and issues connected to COVID-19 and seasonal sickness across the work force. Where possible crews were covering dropped work, and the Council was trying to bring in other drivers to help, but there was a national shortage of HGV drivers.
22. As there have been further missed collections, Mr X has asked the Ombudsman to investigate his complaint. In response to my enquiries the Council states there is no definitive explanation for the number of reported missed collections from Mr X’s street. It has confirmed that 49 other properties on Mr X’s street have reported at least one missed collection since January 2021.
23. The Council has reiterated that having been completed in 2019, Mr X’s estate did not have a fixed collection crew for a period and this may have contributed to inconsistencies in the service. It has also restated that since the pandemic in 2020 it has experienced wide spread staff shortages throughout Waste Services. The Council states the depots are increasingly working in collaboration with one another to provide services across the city. Where there are staffing shortages teams from other depots are assisting to make collections where possible. It states the intention is always to make the collection as soon as possible but this may not be before the next scheduled collection.

Analysis

24. It is clear from the Council’s records that it has repeatedly failed to collect Mr X’s household waste. These failings in the service amount to fault.
25. The Council accepts it has dropped the round servicing Mr X’s street and has missed collections. There also appear to have been delays in making these missed collections. There are inconsistencies in Council’s records, and I do not consider they are a reliable reflection of the extent of the missed collections, or when it actually collected the missed waste.
26. The Council states the depot can monitor reports of missed collections by analysing their dropped work spreadsheets to see if certain streets/addresses start to appear frequently. Its mobile technology (in cab device/mobile hand-held device) can also flag up repeat missed collections. I would therefore have expected the volume of reports from Mr X and other residents on his street to have alerted the Council to a potential problem. This should in turn have prompted an investigation to identify and resolve the issue.
27. I recognise the Council has now added Mr X’s street to a regular route which should provide more reliable collections. This is to be welcomed but does not appear to have fully resolved the problem. Mr X has continued to experience missed collections.
28. Having identified fault, I must now consider whether this has caused Mr X an injustice. Mr X has had to find ways to manage the uncollected waste left at his property and has had to dispose of the accumulated waste himself at the recycling centre. He has also experienced frustration and disappointment, both with the missed collections and the Council’s failure to resolve the problem. Mr X has been put to unnecessary time and trouble in trying to resolve this matter.

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Agreed action

29. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr X and pay him £200 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the repeated failure to make regular waste collections has caused.
30. The Council has also agreed to arrange to monitor Mr X’s household waste and recycling collections for eight weeks to ensure the collections are carried out properly.
31. The Council should carry out this action within one month of the final decision on this complaint.

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Final decision

32. The Council’s repeated failure to collect Mr X’s household waste as scheduled amounts to fault. This fault has caused Mr X an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman