The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint about missed refuse collections resulting from strike action by the Council’s refuse collection crews. This is because the complaint is about an issue which affects all or most of the people in the Council’s area and the law does not allow us to investigate such matters.
The complaint
The complainant, Mrs X, complains the Council has failed to collect her household waste due to strike action by its collection crews. She says the streets are littered with waste and wants us to investigate why the collection crews have been on strike for such a long time.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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.
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. 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)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
From time to time councils may be affected by industrial strike action by its employees or contractors. It is not for us to comment on the rights and wrongs of such action and we cannot say councils must give in to the demands of those who choose to strike. The Council has taken steps to try to end the strikes and the union representing the collection crews has recently confirmed it has suspended further strike action, meaning collections are now starting to resume.
The strike in this case affects all or most of the residents in the Council’s area and Mr X is affected by it in the same way as any other resident. The exclusion set out at Paragraph 3 therefore applies and we cannot therefore investigate the complaint.
Mrs X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with her complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.
Final decision
We cannot investigate this complaint. This is because it is about an issue which affects all or most of the people in the Council’s area.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman