Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about two missed garden waste collections and the Council’s response to his complaint about it. This is because the matter has not caused Mr X a significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant an investigation.

How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X complained to the Council about two missed garden waste collections. This meant Mr X had to keep the garden waste at his property for an extra two weeks until it was collected by the Council.
7. Mr X is dissatisfied with the Council’s response to his complaint because it refers to one missed collection rather than two and because the Council claimed the collection was missed due to circumstances outside its control. Mr X says this is not the case as the Council should have contingency plans in place to cover staff absences. Mr X says the Council should provide residents with bags to store their garden waste if a collection is missed and offer a refund.
8. Whilst Mr X was put to some minor inconvenience by the missed collections the matter did not cause him any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to merit an investigation by this office. We do not investigate every complaint we receive and we must focus our limited public resources on those complaints where a person has suffered a significant personal injustice as a result of fault by a body in our jurisdiction. We do not consider complaint handling issues where we have decided not to investigate the substantive complaint. This is because it is not a good use of public funds to do so.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because the matter has not caused Mr X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to merit an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman