Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint, made on behalf of Mrs Y, about the Council damaging her bin and how it dealt with the complaint. Investigation would not achieve a worthwhile outcome for Mrs Y nor add to the Council’s investigation. Even if there was Council fault, the injustice caused would not be sufficiently significant to warrant investigation. It would be reasonable for Mrs Y to make her claim of personal injury to the Council’s insurers and take it to court if required. We do not investigate councils’ complaint handling where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X is Mrs Y’s son. Mr X complains the Council:
1. damaged Mrs Y’s general waste bin;
2. failed to reply to her initial complaint and did not explain why;
3. referred her to the wrong ombudsman service in its response.
2. Mr X says Mrs Y cut her fingers on the bin which meant she could not use her hands to work or eat for a few days. He says the damaged bin dropped waste which Mrs Y had to clean up. Mr X wants the Council to:
• replace Mrs Y’s damaged bin with a new one;
• compensate Mrs Y for the inconvenience and pain caused to her;
• take complaints seriously;
• get the bin crews to take more care when emptying residents’ bins.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Mr X the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The core complaint claim is that the Council damaged Mrs Y’s bin during its collections over several months. The Council does not accept responsibility for the damage and implies the bin had deteriorated due to age and reached the end of its use. If we investigated this issue, we could not find the Council was responsible for the damage to the bin and the injustices claimed to have been caused by it. There is no evidence from how bin crews handled the bin, nor the bin’s age and condition during those collections, which would be available to our investigation to allow us to make that finding. Therefore, we could not recommend the Council replace Mrs Y’s bin. Investigation of this issue would not achieve a worthwhile outcome for Mrs Y nor add to the Council’s investigation, so we will not investigate.
7. Even if the bin damage was caused by Council fault during collections, we would not investigate. Injustices Mrs Y claims from the damaged bin include the cost to buy a new one and that she had to clean up some rubbish which fell out because of its condition. The price of a replacement bin and the inconvenience caused to Mrs Y by waste falling from the damaged bin do not amount to such a significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating, so we would not do so.
8. We note another injustice Mr X claims is that Mrs Y injured her hands on the damaged bin. They consider this was the responsibility of the Council and seek compensation for the pain and inconvenience caused to Mrs Y. This is a claim of personal injury liability against the Council. It is an allegation that the Council is legally liable for those wounds. If Mrs Y considers the Council was responsible for any injuries she received from using her damaged bin, she should make a claim with its insurers. If the Council’s insurers refuse the claim, then it would be a dispute only the courts could decide. We cannot decide on liability for personal injury claims nor make awards of compensation. It would be reasonable for Mrs Y to pursue this claim with the Council’s insurer and at court, if required, because only they can make decisions on legal liability cases and award compensation.
9. Mr X says the Council did not reply to Mrs Y’s first complaint or, when it did reply, explain why it had not responded to the earlier contact. The Council also referred Mr X and Mrs Y to the wrong ombudsman service in its final reply. We do not investigate councils’ complaint handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue which gave rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.
10. Council staff should know which ombudsman service deals with complaints about bin collections and be able to signpost complainants accordingly. We will not be pursuing this complaint-handling matter further for the reasons given above. But we will suggest the Council provides information or training to staff to help them advise complainants of the correct ombudsman service in future.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint made on behalf of Mrs Y because:
• investigation would not achieve a worthwhile outcome for Mrs Y nor add to the Council’s investigation; and
• even if there was Council fault, the injustice caused would not be sufficiently significant to warrant us investigating; and
• it would be reasonable for Mrs Y to make her claim of personal injury to the Council’s insurers and, if required, take it to court; and
• we do not investigate councils’ complaint handling where we are not investigating the core issues giving rise to the complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman