Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council not providing to him about 10 percent of its paid-for garden waste service, and the contents of its complaint replies. The garden waste service issues did not cause sufficient significant personal injustice to Mr X to justify an investigation. We do not investigate councils’ complaint handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X subscribes to the Council’s paid-for garden waste collections service. He complains the Council:
1. has failed to collect his garden waste about 10 percent of the time;
2. failed to make any garden waste collections for over a month in summer 2023;
3. sent dissatisfactory responses to his complaint.
2. Mr X says he was left with a huge amount of garden waste on his drive for six weeks from the lack of collections in summer 2023. He wants the Council to:

• work harder to make sure it delivers its garden waste service;
• explain why some of the collections, other than those understandably affected by poor weather, did not happen;
• stop sending condescending complaint responses;
• extend his garden waste subscription in line with the number of missed collections.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide:

• 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), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr X, read the Council’s garden waste service terms and conditions, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Officers say in response to Mr X’s complaint that they seek to provide the garden waste service in line with the published terms and conditions. Those terms and conditions say paying the annual subscription fee does not guarantee a fixed number of collections and the service may be suspended.
6. In any event, based on Mr X’s own information on the missed garden waste collections, the amount of service value he has lost is 10 percent. A garden bin subscription is currently £45 per year plus a £10 administration fee. It is not clear if the £10 fee is payable each year on renewal. But if it is, the cost of the service Mr X did not receive amounts to £5.50 per year. There is insufficient financial injustice to Mr X from this matter to justify us investigating.
7. Mr X reports he had to keep some garden waste on his property longer than would be preferable, including a period of about six weeks earlier in 2023. This is a practical impact caused by the missed service issues. We understand this would have caused Mr X some inconvenience and frustration, but it is not a sufficiently significant personal injustice to him which warrants us investigating.
8. We recognise Mr X considers it an important principle that he should receive all the service for which he has paid. But we target our limited investigation resources not based on points of principles, but instead on where we will have the most impact to remedy significant personal injustices caused to complainants. The sum of the injustices to Mr X here are not so significant to justify an investigation.
9. Mr X says he was dissatisfied with the contents of the Council’s complaint responses. We do not investigate council complaint handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue which gave 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.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• the matters complained of do not cause him sufficient significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating; and
• we do not investigate councils’ complaint handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman