Harborough District Council (22 017 011)
Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 26 Mar 2023
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a missed bin collection. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault and injustice.
The complaint
- The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, complains his bin was not emptied on 10 March. Mr X wants an apology and for his bin to be emptied.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 an investigation if we decide:
- there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
- 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))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council. This includes an update from the Council regarding the missed collection. I also considered our Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council suspended refuse services on 10 March due to heavy snow and bad weather.
- Mr X complained his bin had not been emptied on 10 March. The Council explained it had suspended collections due to the bad weather. It asked him to leave the bin out for collection and said it would collect the waste as soon as possible. The Council collected the waste the following week.
- I will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault and injustice. The Council was forced to suspend the service for health and safety reasons associated with the bad weather. It then collected the waste the following week when services resumed. This took a few days because it had to provide its normal service and a catch-up service. I appreciate Mr X was inconvenienced but one missed collection, which was rectified the following week, does not represent a level of injustice requiring an investigation.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault and injustice.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman