Birmingham City Council (25 000 170)
Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 01 May 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint about missed refuse collections. This is because the issue stems from industrial strike action by the Council’s refuse collection crews and is a matter which affects all or most of the people in the Council’s area.
The complaint
- Mrs X complains the Council has not emptied her bins since the end of January. She says that despite raising the issue with the Council it has failed to address the problem or respond to her complaints. Mrs X lives in a block of flats and says she and other leaseholders will have to pay a portion of the cost of arranging a private contractor to remove their waste.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X’s representative, Ms Y, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council’s refuse collection crews began industrial strike action in a dispute over changes to roles and pay in early 2025. This resulted in missed collections for a large proportion of the council’s residents and a backlog of reports which the Council has so far been unable to clear. Residents from across the city have reported rubbish building up locally with bins overflowing, rubbish on the streets, unpleasant odours and vermin.
- While I appreciate Mrs X is unhappy with the situation and with the Council’s failure to properly respond to her complaints, she is affected by the issue in the same was as ‘all or most’ of the residents in the Council’s area. The exclusion set out at Paragraph 3 therefore applies.
Final decision
- We cannot investigate this complaint. This is because it is about an issue which affects all or most of the people in the Council’s area.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman