Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint that the Council’s household waste bin size allocation policy penalises his family by giving them less bin space than other families. There is not enough evidence of Council fault, nor of a significant injustice caused to Mr X’s family, to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives in a household of five people. The Council allocates 240-litre household waste bins to all properties with between one and five residents. Mr X complains this penalises his family.
2. Mr X says the 240-litre bin provides a smaller bin volume per person for his family than for households with different numbers of people. He says the 48 litres per head provided by the bin is not enough to dispose of their waste, and he considers he is getting a reduced service for his council tax when compared to his neighbours.
3. Mr X wants the Council to give all households of five people one of its 360-litre household waste bins, or another bin which would provide at least 60 litres per person.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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

5. I considered information from Mr X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Councils have a duty to collect household waste but have broad discretion to decide how they meet it. They may design schemes which aim to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by providing recycling, food and garden waste services. That is a legitimate goal for a council to have when deciding how to implement its waste collection schemes.
7. The Council adopted its current waste collection policy, including the sizes of bins to be provided to different sized households, after consideration by the relevant committee in 2018. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council in the way it adopted its waste policies here, or in how it has then applied them to provide Mr X’s bin collection service, to warrant us investigating.
8. The difference Mr X has identified between his and other households’ waste services is that his provides 12 litres less volume per person for each collection. The Council states its bin service is not based on a calculation of an amount of household waste per person. But even if there has been fault by the Council in how it has designed, adopted and is implementing its current bin policy and service, we will not investigate. This is because the difference between the Council’s service to Mr X’s family and other families does not cause significant personal injustice sufficient to warrant an investigation.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council in the design and delivery of its adopted waste collection scheme to warrant us investigating; and
• even if there were fault, the matter does not cause Mr X and his family such significant personal injustice to justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman