Summary: There was fault by the Council. The Council failed to reply to a stage 2 complaint and did not tell staff of the location of refuse bins when routes were reorganised, leading to missed collections. An apology, a symbolic payment for the distress and monitoring future collections remedies the injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains about problems with the collection of his refuse. Mr X says the Council did not include his street on the refuse collection rounds when reorganising the collections in 2024, which meant that when collections were missed in his area, the Council did not automatically reschedule the collection.
2. Mr X says the Council has not responded to his stage 2 complaint. Mr X says the failure to respond to his complaints quickly have caused him stress and anxiety.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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What I found

Failure to respond to stage 2 complaint

7. The Council was at fault as it did not respond to Mr X’s stage 2 complaint. The Council said ‘there has been a combination of factors including a system error, lack of resources for Stage 2 complaint handling and some confusion as other responses were provided directly by the Waste and Recycling Service. We would note that we are in the process of completing a business improvement review of complaint handling which proposes to introduce a dedicated complaints team within Corporate Resources to oversee complaints handling end-to-end and will greatly increase resources’.

Refuse collection

8. In response to my enquiries, the Council said ‘Mr X’s street was not missed off the round but due to the unusual location of the bins and where they are accessed, they are not immediately obvious if you do not have local knowledge.  As such, the crews that were allocated to the relevant rounds after the reorganisation weren’t aware of the location of the bins’.
9. The Council said ‘after Mr X’s complaint on 20 September 2024 a Team Leader looked into the issue, spoke to each of the crews and issued them with additional maps and crew notes highlighting the location.  He also arranged for a crew to return and empty any missed bins.  He wrote to Mr X on Monday 23 September 2024 to apologise and advise of the actions taken’.
10. The Council said there have been nine further missed collections from December 2024 until November 2025.

Conclusion

11. Mr X has been caused distress by the Council’s failure to respond to his complaint, which may well have resolved the issues much sooner. In order to remedy this distress, the Council should apologise and make a payment of £250. This payment also recognises Mr X’s inconvenience from the repeated missed collections in 2024-2025. In order to prevent further missed collections, the Council should monitor his collections.

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Action

12. Within one month of the date of the decision on this complaint the Council should:
• Apologise to Mr X in writing for its failure to respond to the stage 2 complaint. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
• Pay Mr X £250.
• Write to Mr X to confirm that it intends to monitor his garden/food waste collection for 6 months to ensure staff empty his bin and identify why collections continue to be missed. (If Mr X reports missed collections of other waste types during this period, then those waste types should be added to the monitoring for the remainder of the 6 month period.)
13. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

14. I have completed my investigation and I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman