Summary: We upheld a complaint from Mr C, finding he experienced repeated problems with waste collection over a thirteen month period. This caused him injustice as he experienced avoidable inconvenience and frustration. The Council accepted these findings. At the end of this statement we set out the action it has agreed to remedy that injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr C complained the Council repeatedly missed collections of waste from his home. He contacted us after making multiple service requests and complaints to the Council. Those complaints also raised problems he had using an online reporting tool the Council has set up for residents to report missed collections. He also said his reports did not always result in the Council returning to collect waste.
2. Mr C said foxes ripped open waste sacks left uncollected, which caused littering in gardens and so on. This caused distress for him and neighbours. He also explained how he became frustrated at making repeated reports and complaints.

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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(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered evidence provided by Mr C and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
6. I gave Mr C and the Council a chance to comment on a draft version of this decision statement. I took account of any responses they made, before issuing this final version.

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What I found

7. Mr C complained to us in January 2025, in the terms summarised in paragraph 1 above. I investigated waste collection from his home from January 2024 onward.
8. I noted Mr C lives on a cul-de-sac comprising a mixture of houses and flats. The road is narrow, about the width of two cars. But photographs show cars usually parked on one side, restricting moving vehicles to one lane.
9. Mr C lives in an upstairs flat. While many houses on the street have wheelie bins, he has nowhere to store one. So, Mr C leaves recyclable waste and general household waste in sacks for collection. He also uses a food recycling bin. The Council collects each of these types of waste separately.
10. It also collects waste sacks separately from wheelie bins. So, while the Council should collect Mr C’s waste on the same day as his neighbours who have wheelie bins, it will use a different, smaller vehicle to do so. Also, because Mr C has sacks, not bins, it should collect his household waste weekly, whereas it schedules collection of household waste wheelie bins fortnightly.
11. The Council provided me a spreadsheet, recording 13 reports of missed collections of waste from Mr C’s address between January 2024 and January 2025 (13 months).
12. In addition, I noted Mr C complained to the Council five times in the same period. The Council investigated these complaints under two separate references, with the first and second complaints (February and March 2024) considered under one reference, to which it added the third complaint (April 2024). It investigated the fourth and fifth complaints (July and October 2024) under another reference. I considered these five complaints, not two, because I found Mr C contacted the Council’s customer services each time in response to a missed collection. Each complaint contact was unique therefore, and not simply a continuation of correspondence about an earlier event.
13. In Mr C’s first complaint, he said he could not log a missed collection using an online reporting tool the Council had set up. He said had spent a long time trying to speak to someone by phone to resolve the problem instead. There is no record on the spreadsheet of a missed collection matching the date of Mr C’s complaint. So, I counted this as a report of a fourteenth missed collection in the period under investigation.
14. Mr C’s second complaint made in March, and his third complaint made at the start of April, highlighted the same problem with the reporting tool. He made these complaints five days apart. On this occasion, the Council had a contemporaneous record of a missed collection on its spreadsheet on a day next to the date of the second complaint, but not the third. I therefore assumed the third complaint arose from a separate missed collection. So, I counted this as a fifteenth missed collection in the period under investigation.
15. I found Mr C’s fourth complaint made in July 2024, corresponded with a missed collection the Council recorded on the spreadsheet. But his fifth, made in October, did not. So, I counted this as a sixteenth missed collection in the period under investigation.
16. Mainly, Mr C reported the waste uncollected as refuse and recycling sacks. But the Council recorded two missed collections of food waste in its data also.
17. The Council did not explain how it replied to each report, including whether it arranged a repeat collection and if so, when that took place.
18. In its replies to his complaints, the Council the Council repeatedly apologised for the missed collections. But it could not explain why Mr C had experienced so many. Only once, in response to a missed collection in September 2024, did the Council provide a reason. It said that day, a crew unfamiliar with the round missed Mr C’s address.
19. The Council also could not explain why Mr C had problems using the web reporting tool. But it suggested it had made upgrades to the product and gave Mr C a direct contact for a manager with responsibility for the website to report further problems.
20. In response to his complaints, in July 2024, the Council told Mr C it had issued specific advice to its collection crew to pay “due care and attention” to his address. And that one of its supervisors would attend the next collection date to see if any specific issues prevented collection. While in November 2024, the Council said it would monitor collection over the next six weeks.
21. Mr C told us that despite this, problems continued. And the Council records showed he reported further missed collections in January 2025. But Mr C said collections improved subsequently, with no missed collections during our investigation.
22. I established the Council online reporting tool should accept reports of missed collections “as soon as the problem arises”. The window to report missed collections lasts until midnight of the day after the collection date.
23. The Council said there were two circumstances where someone will find themselves unable to use the reporting tool. First, if the crew is still out collecting waste and has not yet reported completing its collection from the road in question. Second, if the crew has met a particular issue with the waste left for collection (an example of this would be household waste in a recycling bin) meaning it could not collect that specific waste.
24. The Council said over the last two years, its wheelie bin crew had faced multiple issues with access to Mr C’s road. Seventeen times in two years it could not collect waste as scheduled and returned later.
25. But the Council also said it did not consider access issues to Mr C’s road would impact the same way when collecting sacks. This was because it used the smaller truck. However, it was only in the last three months its crews collecting sacks had the ability to record digitally any problems with access to addresses. It said previously, its crews only kept paper records if they met such problems.

My findings

26. As noted above, Mr C reported missed collections sixteen times during the time period under investigation. While any missed collection points towards a potential service failing by the Council, the occasional missed collection does not justify an investigation by us. But this repeated pattern of missed collections appeared exceptional.
27. It was unsatisfactory there was no explanation for why this should happen. On one occasion the Council explained to Mr C how a missed collection arose from a crew missing his address due to unfamiliarity with the route. And it explained its larger wheelie bin collection vehicle experienced regular problems with access to the road. But it also considered this an unlikely explanation for missed collections in Mr C’s case, because for sack collections it used a smaller vehicle.
28. So, Mr C did not know why the Council had missed so many collections. This was despite it promising from July 2024 onward that it would pay closer attention to collection from his address and the reminders given to its collection crew.
29. I found the fact Mr C experienced so many problems with waste collection meant the Council was fault, for a repeated service failure. There was no contrary evidence suggesting for example that Mr C had not followed the Council’s expectations for bagging and presenting waste for collection.
30. I also found there was no clear explanation for the problems Mr C had using the Council’s reporting tool. The Council offered some general comments on why Mr C may have had difficulties. But nothing that explained the problems he reported on specific occasions.
31. Further, it was disappointing the Council did not engage with another part of Mr C’s complaint. He said after reporting missed collections; the Council did not always arrange another collection.
32. The evidence suggested that not every time there was a missed collection Mr C struggled to report it. Nor that every time the Council failed to arrange a re-collection. But on balance, I was persuaded both happened on occasion. So, I recorded a further finding of fault.
33. I considered the faults summarised in paragraphs 29 and 32 caused injustice to Mr C. Over the course of thirteen months, he experienced far more inconvenience and frustration than anyone might reasonably expect, allowing that occasional issues with waste collection will sometimes arise.
34. I recognised the Council had apologised to Mr C for the problems he experienced. Also, that he reported an improved service after January 2025. I considered it possible some of this improvement resulted from the efforts the Council took to monitor collections and from giving reminders to the collection crews not to miss Mr C’s address. I also noted the digital records now kept by the sack collection vehicle would make it easier to track if the crew could not make a collection for reasons beyond its control, such as access difficulties to the road. I considered this in turn could result in a more efficient service with less chance of a missed collection remaining uncollected.
35. But while I welcomed all the above, I considered there was more the Council could do to remedy Mr C’s personal injustice. It accepted this was so, and I set out below the action it has agreed to take.
36. I did not recommend further specific action to monitor collections at Mr C’s address, given the improved collections he reported. But I considered the complaint showed a need for potential wider learning by the Council, which could benefit Mr C if he encountered further problems in the future.
37. First, I had a concern at the time taken by the Council to recognise a need for active intervention to monitor collections, given how many times Mr C reported them missed.
38. Second, I had a concern at the effectiveness of its intervention. While potentially this resulted in the improved collections Mr C reported, it took several months before he noticed significant improvement. So, I was doubtful if this was the cause. I noted the Council provided Mr C with no explanation of what its supervision found. I had concern it had stopped its checks of collection from his address before it could say with confidence it had resolved the problem.
39. I asked the Council to consider introducing a policy or procedure to consider cases of repeated missed waste collection. This could identify a threshold at which missed collections appeared ‘outside the norm’ (for example, three reports in six months). And unless the Council could readily identify the cause, it could then ensure its waste supervisors investigated and monitored collection for a fixed period, liaising with the resident affected. At the end of such investigation and monitoring, the Council could then write to the resident to confirm what it had found and how it sought to remedy the problem.
40. The Council considered it could not introduce such a policy at the present time, based on reported missed collections alone, due to software limitations. But it would seek to respond better to complaints in the future, taking account of my comments and analysis above. Given we have not upheld other complaints about the Council’s waste collection service over the past twelve months, I accepted this was satisfactory. However, I also advised the Council we could revisit the need for a more formal policy to tackle missed collections if we received more complaints like that from Mr C.

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Agreed Action

41. To remedy the injustice identified above, the Council agreed that within 20 working days of this decision, it would:

• offer a further apology to Mr C;
• provide a symbolic payment of £150 in recognition of his injustice.

42. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council will consider this guidance in making the apology recommended.
43. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

44. For reasons set out above I upheld this complaint finding fault by the Council caused injustice to Mr C. I have set out action the Council agreed to take, that I considered would remedy that injustice. Consequently, I completed my investigation satisfied with its response.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman