Summary: We will not investigate Miss B’s complaint about missed waste collections. This is because at the moment Miss B has not suffered a significant injustice which would justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss B complains the Council did not collect her waste bin as scheduled in late July. Miss B says she complained to the Council but the Council said it could not consider her complaint. Miss B says this is not the first time the Council has not collected her waste.

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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 impact 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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Miss B.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. We have limited resources and must focus our investigations on complaints where a person has suffered a serious injustice as a result of fault by a council. We do not normally investigate complaints about one missed waste collection or a limited number of missed collections. And, we do not expect councils to pay a financial remedy for a limited number of missed collections.
6. The Council said it would not consider Miss B’s complaint because she had made her complaint the day after she reported the missed collection and the Council had not been given enough time to take action.
7. At the moment, Miss B has not suffered a serious injustice which would justify public money being spent on an investigation by the Ombudsman.
8. And, an investigation is unlikely to result in us criticising the Council for the way it responded to Miss B’s complaint.
9. But, if there are more missed collections over a longer period of time then Miss B may complain to us again. Miss B may continue to report these to the Council and keep a record of each missed collection to support her complaint.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss B’s complaint because Miss B has not suffered a significant injustice which would justify an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman