Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s garden waste service. There is not enough evidence the Council’s suspension of the service involved fault. The Council extending Mr X’s garden waste subscription provides a suitable outcome for the suspensions. The missed collections once the service resumed and his reports to the Council did not cause Mr X significant personal injustice warranting our investigation. We will not investigate his complaint about the Council’s complaints process as we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X signed up for the Council’s paid-for garden waste collection scheme. He complains the Council:
1. unreasonably suspended the service;
2. once the service restarted, missed further collections;
3. did not deal properly with his complaints.
2. Mr X says he has missed out on the service he paid for, has spent several hours dealing with the matter, and has had to dispose of his garden waste in other ways. He wants compensation for his time, inconvenience and the lack of service, and for the Council to collect the garden waste without further stoppages or collection problems.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council suspended garden waste collections for Mr X and all other residents signed up to that service. The Council says it did this because of pressures on resources available to all its waste services in the area. Officers decided to prioritise the continuation of general waste and recycling collections. The Council was entitled to prioritise its core waste services during the periods where resources required this. There is not enough evidence this decision involved fault. Even if there were fault, the Council has extended the garden waste subscriptions of all those affected by the suspension of the service, in line with the lengths of those suspensions. This is a suitable outcome for this part of the matter as it will provide Mr X with the same service period he paid for with his subscription.
6. I recognise Mr X has been caused inconvenience by at least one missed collection, once the service resumed. But the personal injustice caused to Mr X by this, and his complaints about it, is not so significant to justify us investigating.
7. Mr X says the Council did not deal properly with his complaints and reports regarding the bin collections. We do not investigate councils’ internal complaints processes in isolation where we are not investigating the core issues which gave rise to the complaint. That limitation applies here, so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence the Council’s decision to suspend the garden waste service involved fault; and
• the Council extending Mr X’s garden waste subscription provides a suitable outcome for the suspensions to the service; and
• once the service resumed, the missed collections and his reports to the Council did not cause Mr X such significant personal injustice to justify us investigating; and
• we do not investigate complaints about council internal complaints process in isolation where we are not investigating the core issues which gave rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman