The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council's bin service. There is insufficient personal injustice caused by the matters raised to warrant us investigating. Investigation would also not lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
Ms X lives on a narrow street. She complains the Council: has failed to consistently collect her waste or return to complete missed collections; uses an online reporting system for missed collections which does not work so is not gathering all relevant data.
Ms X says the Council has missed at least 10 collections since she moved to the property in 2021, but the Council’s system has not recorded all the incidents. She says full bins waiting to be emptied clutter up the narrow street and make it unsightly. She says missed household waste collections in summer attracted vermin, causing a health hazard.
Ms X wants: bin staff to be told to pay extra attention to the street; bin staff to return to complete any missed collection the next day; the Council to refund the tax paid for the service she is not receiving; the Council to resolve any problems with access; the Council to change single yellow lines to double ones, and patrol the area to ensure compliance.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Ombudsman investigates 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 or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide: any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement; or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information from Ms X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We recognise missed bin collections cause frustration, inconvenience and may result in unemptied bins being on the street for longer. But the impacts of about 10 missed collections for different bin services over at least a 12-month period, nor of the missed summer collection, do not cause a significant enough injustice to Ms X to justify us investigating.
Ms X also raises the Council’s system for reporting missed bin collections. She says the system will not allow her to report all incidents so the Council has not got accurate records. We have based our decision on the information Ms X provided, not the Council’s. Investigation of this issue would not achieve a different outcome for this complaint, such as discovering additional information from the Council about Ms X’s missed collections, if the relevant evidence has not been recorded at the time. As a result of Ms X’s complaint, the Council is aware of her concerns about its online missed collection reporting system. It is for the Council to determine what system to have in place and to decide whether to change it. We could not order a council to change its system.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because: there is insufficient personal injustice caused by the matters raised to warrant us investigating; further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman