Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s bin service, how it dealt with that complaint, and it not responding to a complaint about construction noise. There is not enough subsisting injustice caused to Mr X from the bin issues to warrant investigation. The Council’s payment offer is in line with the outcome we would have sought for the bin complaint and there is no different outcome investigation would achieve. We do not investigate council complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint. It would not be unreasonable for Mr X to refer the construction noise complaint back to the Council for officers to investigate and reply.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council:
1. has failed to empty his bin several times;
2. has failed to pay him for him having to remove the waste himself on the last occasion, in February 2023;
3. has failed to provide a suitable remedy to his complaint;
4. delayed in dealing with his complaint;
5. failed to deal with a complaint he made about construction noise.
2. Mr X says he was left with uncollected waste at his property for two months. He says he spent time and was caused inconvenience from having to take the waste to the tip and from contacting the Council. He says the situation caused him stress.
3. Mr X wants the Council to:
• pay him £50 for not dealing with his construction noise complaint and acknowledge its error; and
• pay him £75 for the previous missed collections and to take responsibility for them;
4. If he receives these two sums, Mr X wants a further £150 for having to remove the uncollected waste in February 2023. If he does not receive those first two sums, he instead wants £300 for removing the waste.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. 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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

6. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
7. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the council knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the council of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

9. Mr X says the Council missed several bin collections but does not give further information. The Council says various collections were missed during winter because of bad weather which affected the bin service throughout the area. By the time Mr X complained in early 2023, he says he had uncollected waste which had been there about two months, which he took to the tip himself. The Council offered Mr X a ‘goodwill’ payment of £50 for its lapse in customer service.
10. We realise Mr X was caused inconvenience and annoyance from the waste left after missed collections and the contacts he made with the Council to try to resolve the issue. But were we to investigate, the payment offered by the Council is in line with the outcome we would have sought here to remedy the level of injustice caused to Mr X. There is not enough unremedied personal injustice to Mr X from the matters complained of to warrant an investigation, and there is no different outcome an investigation would achieve for him.
11. I note the Council time-limited Mr X’s acceptance of the £50 payment in March 2023 and the deadline has expired. I have asked the Council to honour that same payment to Mr X again if he requests it, unless he has already received it.
12. Mr X complains about the way the Council dealt with his complaint. We do not investigate councils’ complain-handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this aspect of the complaint.
13. Mr X says he complained to the Council about construction noise but says it ignored it. He does not say when he made that complaint. There is no indication Mr X pursued the noise issue through the Council’s internal complaint process after it did not respond to him about it. If, as Mr X says, the Council did not reply, we would expect him to pursue the matter until the Council’s complaint process was complete, as he did with his bin service complaint. We may only investigate this separate noise complaint issue once that Council complaint process was exhausted. If Mr X wishes to pursue the noise complaint, it would not be unreasonable for him to take it back to the Council for the relevant officers to investigate and reply. If he remains dissatisfied after the end of the Council’s complaint process, he may wish to bring the matter to us and we would decide whether it warrants investigation.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough subsisting injustice caused to him by the bin issues to warrant an investigation; and
• there is no different outcome investigation would achieve for him; and
• we do not investigate council complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint; and
• the complaint about construction noise is a separate matter which is premature for us to investigate and it would not be unreasonable for him to refer it back to the Council for officers to investigate and respond.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman