Summary: Mrs X complained council staff lied about her dog biting a waste collection operative. Mrs X said there were problems with her household waste collection service after she complained. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we could not add anything to the Council’s responses.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complained two waste collection operatives lied about her dog biting one of them. Mrs X is unhappy with the conduct of the Council’s staff and that the Council reported the incident to its dog warden and housing team. Mrs X says the operatives lied and wants an apology.

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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:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(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.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. We will not start an investigation into Mrs X’s complaint.
6. The Council says it believes one of its staff was bitten by Mrs X’s dog and that it had a duty to report the matter to its dog warden and housing team. Mrs X disputes what happened. We were not there and so it is unlikely we could add anything to the Council’s response or reach a safe conclusion about what happened. We could not criticise the Council for reporting the incident as its staff say it happened. It is for the respective council departments to take whatever action they consider appropriate.
7. The Council has said the missed waste collections are not connected to the incident involving Mrs X’s dog and there is no evidence to suggest there is a link. I understand Mrs X’s frustrations from the missed waste collections, but we will not investigate this issue. The Council has explained it missed the collections because of access issues and it is unlikely we could add anything to this response. Also, the injustice from the missed collections is not enough to warrant the Ombudsman investigating.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is unlikely we could add anything to the Council’s responses.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman