Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about household waste collections. This is because an investigation would be unlikely to add anything to the Council’s response or lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained the Council failed to collect her household waste over a ten-week period.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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:

• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. In response to Miss X’s complaint the Council said it had visited her home. It had identified she had two bins – one with a black lid and one with a blue lid. The Council had only been emptying the lid with a black lid. This was because its policy was to only empty a second bin if the household had more than five permanent residents. The Council said it had not been told this applied to Miss X. The Council said it had updated its records, told the relevant crew, and would arrange for the blue lidded bin to be replaced with another black lidded one.
6. In response to our enquiries the Council said it had not received any further responses of missed collections since it sent its final response.
7. I understand Miss X’s frustrations about the missed collections. But we do not investigate every complaint we receive. We are funded by the public purse and have an obligation to use our limited resources in an effective, efficient, and economic manner. This means that we will generally not investigate where an investigation is unlikely to add anything to the one already undertaken by the Council or lead to a significantly different outcome. That applies here as our intervention would not achieve anything more for Miss X. An investigation is not therefore warranted.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. An investigation would be unlikely to add anything to the Council’s response or achieve anything more.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman