Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about missed recycling collections. This is because the matter has not caused Mr X any significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that over the past few months he has had more than five missed recycling collections and despite complaining to the Council about this the problem persists. He says this has caused him considerable inconvenience and a lack of confidence in the Council’s waste services.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue 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. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mr X says he has had over 5 missed recycling collections over the past few months. We can only investigate complaints about matters the Council has already had the opportunity to consider via its complaints procedure. The Council has received and considered complaints from Mr X about two missed collections in this timeframe. I have only considered these two missed collections as the Council has not yet considered complaints about any other missed collections via its complaints procedure.
8. Mr X has complained to the Council about two missed recycling collections over the past year. Mr X complained about a missed glass recycling collection in May 2025 and a missed recycling collection in June 2025.
9. The Council explained the glass recycling collection was missed because the collection vehicle needed to be repaired. It returned to complete the collection a few days later. It apologised to Mr X for the delay and for the impact of this.
10. In response to Mr X’s complaint about the missed collection in June, the Council explained this was again caused by an issue with the vehicle. It said the collection would be completed on the next scheduled collection day. It explained it was experiencing issues with the reliability of the vehicles due to the age of the fleet. It set out the actions it was taking to resolve this in its complaint response to Mr X.
11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because, whilst I acknowledge one missed and one delayed recycling collection will have caused some level of inconvenience and frustration the injustice caused to Mr X is not so serious that it warrants the use of limited public funds to carry out a further investigation.
12. We do not investigate every complaint we receive. We must focus our limited public resources on investigating those complaints where a person has suffered a significant personal injustice because of alleged fault by a body in our jurisdiction. This is not the case here.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because the matter complained about has not caused Mr X a significant personal injustice which is serious enough to warrant a further investigation by this office.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman