Summary: Mr B complained the Council has repeatedly failed to collect his waste on the scheduled collection days, and the Council’s online platform to report missed collections is not fully accessible for disabled people. The Council was at fault for the continued failure to collect Mr B’s waste on the scheduled days. It was also at fault for the failure to address all Mr B’s concerns in its response to his complaint. Because of the fault, Mr B suffered frustration and uncertainty, and it meant he continued to contact the Council to report the missed collections. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr B, make a symbolic payment, and issue a staff briefing.

The complaint

1. Mr B complains about failings in the Council’s waste collection service. He says it has missed collections on several occasions despite the Council’s assurance the service would improve, and the Council’s online platform to report missed collections is not fully accessible for disabled people.
2. Mr B says he feels ignored by the Council and he has concerns the matter will become a public health issue if it continues.
3. Mr B would like an apology from the Council, and for it to collect his waste on the scheduled day. He would also like an email address to report missed collections to the Council.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

6. I considered evidence provided by Mr B and the Council, and relevant law, policy and guidance.
7. Mr B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

8. Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to arrange for the collection of household waste and recycling from the properties in its area. The collections do not have to be weekly and councils can decide the type of bins or boxes people must use.
9. The Council’s practice is to make a weekly household waste collection and a fortnightly recycling collection.
10. When a resident reports a missed collection, the Depot will ask the crew to return to complete the round as soon as possible. When the Council has completed the collection, it closes the report.

Reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities

11. The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to any body which carries out a public function. It aims to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people.
12. Service providers are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, they must make them.
13. The duty is ‘anticipatory’. This means service providers cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use their services, but must think in advance about what disabled people with a range of impairments might reasonably need.

Public sector equality duty

14. The Public Sector Equality Duty requires all local authorities (and bodies acting on their behalf) to have due regard to the need to:
• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010;
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not; and
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
15. The broad purpose of the Public Sector Equality Duty is to consider equality and good relations in the day-to-day business and decision making of public authorities. It requires equality considerations to be reflected into the design of policies and the delivery of services, including internal policies, and for these issues to be kept under review.

Back to top

What happened

16. Mr B says the Council has repeatedly failed to collect his waste on the scheduled days, despite collecting his neighbours’ waste on the opposite side of the street.
17. According to the Council’s records, Mr B reported five missed waste collections between March 2024 and July 2024. The Council has marked the reports as completed which suggests it has since made the missed collections.
18. In mid-April 2024, Mr B logged a stage one complaint with the Council. He told it:
• the Council had not collected his waste on 29 March 2024 and 12 April 2024;
• he and others where he lives struggle to put the bins out and bring them back in due to poor health or disability;
• he and carers had witnessed the Council collecting waste from properties on the opposite side of his street, but not his; and
• he wanted the Council to collect the waste on time and provide a telephone number he could contact when the collection is missed.
19. The Council sent its stage one complaint response to Mr B in early May 2024. It apologised and told Mr B it had escalated the issue with the relevant department, and it had given crews extra reminders to ensure collections are made as scheduled. The Council also gave Mr B a link to its online reporting platform to report missed collections, and an email address for his local Depot.
20. Mr B logged a stage two complaint with the Council a few days later. He told it there had been a missed collection again on 3 May 2024 and the online reporting platform is not fully disability accessible for him to use. The Council gave Mr B a telephone number to report missed collections and told him it had operational issues that had impacted Mr B’s area and other areas in the city.
21. Mr B contacted the Council again in late May 2024 after another missed collection. He told the Council he wanted to know why missed collections kept happening.
22. In June 2024, the Council sent its stage two response to Mr B. It apologised and repeated what it had told him in its previous response. It said the Depot had been experiencing operational issues which had significantly impacted it making the scheduled collections.

Back to top

Analysis

23. It is clear from the Council’s records it has repeatedly failed to collect Mr B’s waste, despite assurances the service would improve. The continued failure to collect Mr B’s waste as scheduled was fault. This meant Mr B had to repeatedly report the missed collections and raise complaints with the Council. This caused frustration and uncertainty to him as he could not trust the service would improve.
24. The Council’s records show the missed collections were all later collected, most before the next scheduled collection. However, there are inconsistencies in the Council’s records, and I note Mr B’s complaints also refer to missed collections which the Council’s records do not account for.
25. For example, the Council’s records do not include the missed collection on 12 April 2024, which Mr B referred to in his stage one complaint. There is a record of a missed collection on 21 June 2024. This was not collected until 12 July 2024, which suggests the collection scheduled for 28 June 2024 was also missed. A collection was also missed on 5 July 2024, which suggests there were three consecutive missed collections. The Council’s incomplete records indicate they are not a reliable reflection of the extent of the problem.
26. In response to my enquiries, the Council told me it is experiencing operational issues with staffing, vehicles, and access. While I recognise the Council has those challenges, this has been the case for a number of years. Given the regularity with which Mr B’s part of the road is affected the Council should have investigated why Mr B’s road has experienced such persistent issues and acted to address this, in the short and longer term.
27. The Council told me it is in the process of buying a new fleet to help deal with vehicle issues. In the meantime it aims to collect missed collections by the next collection day. But these long-term solutions take time to set up and there is no evidence of any action to improve the service Mr B receives in the meantime. The Council’s records have shown the short-term solution of collecting missed collections by the next scheduled date is unreliable.
28. There was also fault in the way the Council responded to Mr B’s complaint, as it did not address all his concerns. The Council’s complaint response told Mr B the Depot has been experiencing operational issues. But it did not explain why some of the street is missed while neighbouring properties on the opposite side of the road are collected, or why the missed collections keep occurring. Rather, it gave a generic response. It also did not respond to Mr B’s concern that he and others where he lives struggle to put the bins out and bring them back in due to poor health or disability. This is poor complaint-handling, which caused uncertainty to Mr B.
29. During my investigation, I spoke to Mr B and he told me has difficulty using the online reporting platform, and there is no other way to report missed collections. He said the Council gave him the Depot’s telephone number to report issues, but he did not feel comfortable speaking with people he does not know.
30. The Council has confirmed missed collections can be reported online, or they can be reported by telephoning the Council’s contact centre and using a voice-automated system. Mr B would not need to speak to anybody if he used this option. The Council gave Mr B those details after he asked it for a telephone number to report missed collections. I have not seen evidence of the Council informing Mr B he would not need to speak to anybody if he used this option, but I have not seen evidence to suggest the Council was aware Mr B does not feel comfortable speaking to people he does not know over the phone. The Council also provided Mr B with his local Depot’s email address which he could use to contact the Depot. So, while Mr B says the online platform is inaccessible to him, the Council has offered other ways to report missed collections, which it has told Mr B about. The Council has evidenced it has alternative options available to service users to enable access to report missed collections.
31. We have published guidance to explain how we calculate remedies for people who have suffered injustice because of fault by a Council. Our primary aim is to put people back in the position they would have been in if the fault by the Council had not occurred.
32. Sometimes we will recommend a financial payment to the person who brought their complaint to us. This might be to reimburse a person who has suffered a quantifiable loss, or it might be more of a symbolic payment which serves as an acknowledgement of the distress or difficulties they have been put through. But our remedies are not intended to be punitive and we do not award compensation in the way a court might. Nor do we calculate a financial remedy based on what the cost of the services would have been to the provider.

Back to top

Action

33. To remedy the outstanding injustice caused to Mr B by the fault I have identified, the Council has agreed to take the following actions within four weeks of my decision:
• Apologise to Mr B for the frustration and uncertainty caused by the Council’s repeated failure to collect his waste on the scheduled days, and the poor complaint-handling. This apology should be in accordance with our guidance Making an effective apology.
• Ask Mr B if he would like to be registered for assisted collections if he is eligible and set this up if he confirms he does and is eligible. The Council should make those arrangements so they are in place when the current industrial action ends.
• Issue a staff briefing to remind relevant staff of the importance of effective complaint responses and addressing all concerns raised by service users within them.
34. Within eight weeks of my decision, the Council has agreed to pay Mr B £250 to acknowledge the frustration and uncertainty caused by the missed collections and poor complaint-handling.
35. In cases such as this, we would usually recommend the Council monitor waste collections to ensure the collections are carried out on the scheduled days and to identify and address any operational issues that are disproportionately affecting collections on Mr B’s road. However, due to industrial strike action, we are unable to ask the Council to do this.
36. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

Back to top

Decision

37. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman