Birmingham City Council (21 016 702)

Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 04 Mar 2022

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council not dealing with her complaint regarding her neighbour receiving assisted bin collections. The Council providing that service to her neighbour does not cause Mrs X a significant personal injustice warranting an investigation. We do not investigate councils’ complaints handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

  1. Mrs X complains the Council:
      1. is providing an assisted bin collection to her neighbour, when she considers they do not qualify for one;
      2. has failed to properly deal with and respond to her complaint on the matter.
  2. Mrs X says she has spent a great deal of time on calls and emails to the Council’s complaints department on the matter. She wants the Council to deal with her complaint properly and in a timely way.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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:
  • any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, 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

  1. I considered information from Mrs X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

  1. Mrs X has been complaining to the Council because of her concern that her neighbour has an assisted bin collection, which she believes they should not be receiving. It is for the Council to decide which residents qualify for and have assisted collections. If the Council has made a mistake in providing this service to her neighbour, it has no bearing on services Mrs X receives from the Council. Any fault in the Council giving her neighbour assisted bin collections does not cause Mrs X a significant personal injustice which would warrant us investigating.
  2. Furthermore, even if the neighbour should not be receiving assisted collections, their having that service does not cause Mrs X a significant personal injustice. It may annoy her, but that is not sufficient injustice to warrant us using public money to investigate. Someone else’s good fortune is not Mrs X’s injustice.
  3. The injustice Mrs X claims is from the time she has spent contacting the Council about her neighbour’s assisted collection. We do not investigate councils’ complaints handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue which gave rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of public resources to do so. That limitation applies here, so we will not pursue this part of Mrs X’s complaint.

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Final decision

  1. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
    • the Council providing assisted bin collections to her neighbour does not cause Mrs X a significant personal injustice which justifies us investigating; and
    • we do not investigate councils’ complaints handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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