Summary: We will not investigate Ms X's complaint about the Council's decision to change its waste collection arrangements. This is because further investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault in the Councils actions.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains abouts the Council's decision to change her refuse collection arrangements and believes the Council has failed to properly address her concerns. Ms X says the new arrangements require residents to move their bins down a very steep lane, creating health and safety risks, particularly in poor weather. Ms X says the change has caused her stress and anxiety because she struggles to move heavy bins and fears injury. Ms X wants the Council to restore the previous collection arrangements, under which refuse vehicles accessed the lane and collected bins near residents' properties.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council considered Ms X's concerns through its complaint’s procedure. It explained it changed the collection arrangements because of concerns about vehicles accessing the unadopted road and provided the reasons for its decision. The Council also offered alternative collection arrangements, including sack collections.
6. The Council also acknowledged and apologised for delays in responding to Ms X's earlier complaints.
7. We will not investigate Ms X's complaint. Based on the evidence I have seen, the Council considered Ms X's concerns, explained the reasons for changing the collection arrangements, and explained the Environmental Protection Act 1990 allows it to specify where residents must present their waste for collection. This is a decision it was entitled to make and further investigation would be unlikely to find evidence of fault in the way the Council reached its decision.
8. We are not an appeal body. We do not question decisions simply because someone disagrees with them. Our role is to consider whether there was fault in the way the Council reached its decision.
9. In addition, we do not normally investigate complaint handling as a standalone issue where we are not investigating the substantive matter. Therefore, it would not be a good use of public resources to investigate Ms X’s concerns about the Council's complaint handling separately.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint, because further investigation is unlikely to find evidence of fault in the Council’s actions.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman