Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about missed bin collections before and during industrial action. We have no jurisdiction to investigate matters which affect all or most people in the Council’s area, and collections missed before the action did not cause the complainant a significant enough injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council failing to provide reliable refuse and recycling collections, even before industrial action had started in the area.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We can 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. So, we do not start an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
4. In that regard, we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm or distress as a direct result of faults or failures by an organisation.
5. And we cannot investigate something that affects all or most of the people in a council’s area. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council. This included information about when Mr X has reported missed collections to the Council in the last 12-months.
7. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The information from the Council shows Mr X reported two missed recycling collections in July and August 2024. The Ombudsman appreciates that missed collections are annoying, frustrating and inconvenient. But mistakes can happen and from time to time most people will have a missed collection. We need to make sure we use public money efficiently, so we would not investigate complaints where there have been just a couple of missed collections, as there is insufficient injustice to warrant pursuing the matter further.
9. And, with reference to paragraph 4 above, we cannot investigate the regularly missed refuse collections in 2025, as these were caused by ongoing industrial action which affects all or most people in the Council’s area.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because the 2024 missed collections did not cause him a significant injustice, and we cannot investigate matters which have affected all or most people in the Council’s area.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman