Summary: There was fault by the Council, because of ongoing problems with its waste collections from the complainant’s address. The Council has now agreed to undertake a period of monitoring to identify and resolve the problem, and to offer the complainant a modest financial remedy to reflect her frustration at the poor service she has received. We have therefore completed our investigation.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mrs B.
2. Mrs B complains about the Council’s waste collection service. She says she has received no recycling collection since April 2021, and that her food waste collection is only fortnightly when it is supposed to be weekly.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I reviewed Mrs B’s correspondence with the Council, and the Council’s response to my enquiries.
5. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

6. Mrs B says the problems with her waste collections began in April 2021. In July, she began reporting the missed collections through the Council’s online portal.
7. In February 2022, Mrs B contacted her local councillor. She explained she had received no recycling collection since April, and that her food waste bin was only being collected fortnightly, instead of weekly as it was supposed to be. After investigating, the Councillor wrote back to Mrs B, explaining this had arisen because of some confusion about her address and a nearby block of flats with a similar address, and should now have been resolved.
8. In March, Mrs B made a formal complaint to the Council, saying the problems had not been resolved. The Council replied in April to say it had added Mrs B’s address to waste collection vehicle’s on-board system, and discussed the matter with the relevant crew members to ensure the address was not missed.
9. A couple of weeks later Mrs B wrote back to the Council. She said she had been at home on the last three collection days and had spoken to the crew members, who had told her the address was in fact not on their system. Although they had taken her recycling on these occasions, they had said they were only supposed to be collecting the flats’ communal bins and not her individual ones.
10. The Council responded in June. It noted Mrs B had spoken to a supervisor in May had that Mrs B had informed her the waste collections were now happening as scheduled. The Council also noted Mrs B had raised concerns her address was showing as part of the block of flats on its web portal. It apologised about this and explained the portal software was new and it was working with the supplier to resolve the problem, which it hoped to do in the near future.
11. The Council said its complaints process was now complete and referred Mrs B to the Ombudsman if she wished to pursue the matter further.
12. The following day Mrs B wrote back to the Council to say the problems with the collections had not, in fact, been resolved. The Council replied to say it had passed this information to waste service and reiterated she should now approach the Ombudsman if she wished to complain further.
13. Mrs B referred her complaint to the Ombudsman on 5 July.

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Analysis

14. At the beginning of my investigation I wrote to the Council seeking some further details about the waste collection schedule for Mrs B’s address.
15. In response, the Council explained Mrs B’s property has individual bins, unlike the communal bins used by other properties on the road. It said communal bins are collected by a different crew than individual bins, and so it had changed the crew and vehicle for the road; and, since implementing this change, it had not received any more missed collection reports from Mrs B since May.
16. The Council also confirmed Mrs B’s address now shows as a separate property on its portal.
17. I wrote back to the Council to highlight that Mrs B had reported ongoing missed collections in June – which the Council itself had acknowledged – and that she had confirmed to me more recently, in September, there were still problems. I said this contradicted the Council’s assertion it had received no more reports from Mrs B since May.
18. I also pointed out to the Council its portal showed that Mrs B’s address was only due a food waste collection every fortnight, when both she and the Council had confirmed this was supposed to be weekly.
19. The Council replied to acknowledge Mrs B had reported ongoing problems since May. It said she had not used the portal to report these missed collections, which is why it had mistakenly believed there were no problems after May, but accepted it should also have picked up the information she had provided to its complaints team. It said it would ensure this happened in future. The Council also confirmed it had now corrected the food waste collection date on the portal.
20. This is positive, but it does not resolve the main substantive issues here, which are that Mrs B is still not receiving a regular recycling collection, and that her food waste collection is only happening on half the occasions it is supposed to.
21. Unfortunately, at this stage, it is difficult to see what further investigation by the Ombudsman is likely to uncover. There is evidently a systemic problem with the Council’s procedure for collecting from Mrs B’s address, and it is the Council which must diagnose this problem and take steps to rectify it.
22. To this end, I consider the Council should undertake a period of monitoring of Mrs B’s collections. It is for the Council to decide precisely what this should entail, but we consider proper monitoring should involve managerial oversight of the collections from the relevant address, consideration of the data this provides, and the creation of an action plan to resolve the problem once it is identified.
23. I also note Mrs B says she stopped reporting missed collections on the web portal, because the Council never returned to collect the missed bins. This may explain why the Council considered it had resolved the problem in May.
24. I have not investigated recollections as a separate point, but, as part of the monitoring process, the Council should also ensure it schedules a recollection when it identifies a missed collection.
25. I make a recommendation to this effect.
26. I will add that, although I appreciate why Mrs B stopped reporting missed collections, it is important the Council collects this data, and so I would urge her to continue doing this.
27. Finally, I consider the Council should offer Mrs B a modest financial remedy here, to reflect the unnecessary frustration she has suffered because of the poor service she has received. I also make a recommendation to this effect.

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Agreed action

28. Within one month of the date of my final decision, the Council has agreed to:

• implement monitoring of the recycling and food waste collections from Mrs B’s address, with the aim of identifying the reason for the irregular collections and resolving it, and also to ensure any missed collections are returned to as quickly as possible. Once it has done this, the Council should write to the Ombudsman to confirm what form this monitoring will take;
• offer Mrs B £150 to reflect her frustration at the poor service she has received.

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Final decision

29. I have completed my investigation with a finding of fault causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman