Summary: Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling as scheduled despite collecting her neighbours’ waste. We found the repeated failures in the assisted collection service the Council provided to Mrs X is fault. This fault caused Mrs X frustration and disappointment and meant she had to rely on others to dispose of her waste or to present and retrieve her bin. The Council will apologise and make a payment to Mrs X to remedy this injustice.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling as scheduled despite collecting her neighbours’ waste.
2. Mrs X should receive assisted collections but complains her bin is only collected if she arranges for it to be presented at the edge of her drive. The collection crew do not then routinely return her bin to her property and she often requires the assistance of others to retrieve it.

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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. 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)
5. In January 2025 the Council’s waste collection crews began industrial action. This began with specific strike days each week when waste would not be collected. Then from 11 March 2025 it became an all-out strike. The Council suspended recycling collections when industrial action began and then declared a major incident on 31 March 2025 to address the impact of the industrial action. This has resulted in missed collections for a large proportion of the Council’s residents.
6. Miss X’s complaints of missed collections began before the strike action and have continued during the strike action. We have investigated Mrs X’s complaint as she appears to be affected more than most. Mrs X should receive assisted collections which have been missed while her neighbour’s waste has been regularly collected during the strike action.
7. 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

8. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
9. Mrs 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

Refuse and recycling collections

10. Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to arrange for the collection of household waste and recycling from properties in its area. The collections do not have to be weekly and councils can decide the type of bins or boxes people must use.
11. The Council's general practice is to make a weekly household waste collection and a fortnightly recycling collection. This practice has been amended during the industrial action.
12. The Council provides an assisted collection service for people who are unable to move their bins and boxes due to a disability or age. The Council should collect the bins from the storage point and return them to the same point.
13. Under normal circumstances when a resident reports a missed collection, the Depot will ask the crew to return to complete the round as soon as possible. When the Council has completed the collection, it closes the report. The Council has stopped actioning reports of missed collections during the industrial action.

What happened here

14. Mrs X complains the Council has repeatedly failed to collect her household waste and recycling as scheduled since March 2024. Mrs X should receive assisted collections but she says her bins are often missed when her neighbours’ are collected.
15. According to the Council’s records Mrs X reported 20 missed household waste collections and six missed recycling collections between May 2024 and July 2025. 15 of these household waste collections have been since the start of the industrial action in January 2025. The records also show that four collections were missed due to the round being dropped because of staffing or vehicle issues. The dropped rounds affected the whole road, not just Mrs X.
16. Mrs X made a formal complaint about the missed collections on 23 October 2024. She had reported that the whole road had been missed on 22 October and complained that when the crew came to collect the waste that next day they had missed her bin. Mrs X said this was the sixth missed collection since March 2024.
17. The Council responded on 24 October 2024 and apologised for he poor level of service. It said it had recently re-routed the structure of its collection routes which had severely disrupted all its services. The Council also said collections had not been carried out by the regular crews and this had led to an oversight by the replacement crew.
18. Mrs X contacted the Council again on 30 October 2024 as her household waste had been missed again. Mrs X said she had CCTV footage showing the collection crew passing her property without even glancing at it. She asked the Council to escalate her complaint to stage two of the complaint process.
19. The Council responded the following day and declined to escalate her complaint. It said that due to a vehicle accident more than half of the route was dropped, and this had included Mrs X’s road. The Council said Mrs X’s road had been prioritised for when a collection was rescheduled. Mrs X disputed this as her CCTV footage showed the crew did collect from her road that morning but missed her bin.
20. Mrs X contacted the Council again in early November 2024 as although the Council had now collected her household waste it had missed her recycling. She again asked the Council to investigate the problem.
21. In its response the Council again apologised for the poor assisted collection service. It said the depot manager was aware of the issues and had given the crews additional reminders to ensure assisted collections were made. It anticipated this would improve the service.
22. Mrs X made a further complaint about missed collections in April 2025. She said that despite the Council’s assurances in November 2024, the service had deteriorated and in 2025 was virtually non-existent. Mrs X said the Council had missed 11 household waste collections between October 2024 and March 2025. And a further three recycling collections between November 2024 and January 2025.
23. These numbers would have been higher but Mrs X had managed on several occasions to call the crew back after they had passed her house. Mrs X asserted these issues were not related to the industrial action and had CCTV footage showing the collection crews were missing her property. Mrs X also noted collections for the whole street had been missed due to the industrial action, but these did not form part of her complaint.
24. Mrs X was concerned that the regularity of the missed collections suggested either that the collection crews were deliberately ignoring instructions to provide assisted collections or had not been told of her assisted collections. Mrs X complained she now had several bags of excess waste which she could not move or dispose of herself. The Council confirmed that crews should be aware of addresses requiring assistance and that it would ensure the excess waste was removed at the next collection.
25. As the problem continued Mrs X has asked the Ombudsman to investigate her concerns. Mrs X says a family member cleared the excess waste for her and moved her bin to the top of the drive. The Council emptied her bin on 22 April 2025 but then missed it the following week as it had been put back by her porch. Mrs X says her bin is now only emptied if it is left at the top of her drive. This causes difficulties for Mrs X who struggles to carry her rubbish up the drive to the bin. It also means her bin is not always returned to her property but can be left further up the street in front of her neighbours’ properties where Mrs X cannot retrieve it.
26. In response to our enquiries the Council says there are two main ways it notifies collection crews of assisted collections on their routes. Firstly, assisted collections are shown on the crew’s tablets, and secondly, in case of technical issues with the tablet, the depot produces a hard copy of the assisted collection list which it gives to each crew.
27. This process is the same whether or not the crew are agency and has remained the same during the industrial action. The Council refers to the assisted collections as a priority service as they are deemed an essential service that will continue during industrial action as long as there is vehicle and staff availability to do so. However, there are no special arrangements for assisted collections such as individual rounds just for assisted collections.
28. The Council says it stopped investigating and actioning reports of missed collections in January 2025 as roads were being missed on a regular basis due to the industrial action. It says the depot was unaware of the ongoing problems with Mrs X’s assisted collections. A manager will now speak to the crew responsible for the round to reinforce the importance of maintaining assisted collections. They will also add Mrs X’s property to the crew’s hotlist monitoring process to ensure a regular and reliable service. Should Mrs X have any further issues, the manager has provided their email so that she can contact them directly.

Analysis

29. It is clear from the Council’s records that it has repeatedly failed to collect Mrs X’s household waste and recycling in line with its assisted collection service. These failings in the service amount to fault.
30. Details of Mrs X’s assisted collections should appear on mobile technology within the collection vehicles and in the crew packs. It is therefore unclear why Mrs X’s household waste and recycling were repeatedly missed when her neighbours’ waste was collected. All collection crews, whether they are the regular crew or a replacement crew, are provided with details of assisted collections on the route so the service should not have been impacted in this way by the industrial action. When crews attended Mrs X’s road they should have collected Mrs X’s household waste along with her neighbours’.
31. I also consider there to be fault in the way the Council responded to Mrs X’s complaints and correspondence. It is disappointing that the Council told Mrs X that missed collections were due to the industrial action and routes being dropped when this was not the case. Particularly given Mrs X had told the Council she had CCTV footage of the crew walking past her property while collecting her neighbour’s waste. This suggests the Council had not properly read or considered Mrs X’s complaints.
32. The Council has now taken action which appears to have improved the service Mrs X receives. This is to be welcomed, but I consider the Council could have taken this action sooner.
33. Having identified fault, I must consider whether this has caused Mrs X a significant injustice. The missed collections began before months before any industrial action and continued through the strikes. Mrs X has not complained about missed collections during the strike action where the whole round/ street was dropped as these affected everyone in the same way.
34. However repeatedly missing her assisted collection when collections were taking place meant she had to rely on others to dispose of her waste or to present and retrieve her bin. She has experienced frustration and disappointment that despite her complaints and reporting of problems the missed collections continued. Mrs X has also been put to time and trouble in pursuing this matter.

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Action

35. The Council will apologise to Mrs X and pay her £300 in recognition of the frustration and difficulties the repeated failure to make regular assisted household waste collections has caused.
36. 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.
37. The Council should take this action with eight weeks of the final decision on his complaint and provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

38. 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