The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s bin collection service. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council or injustice caused to Mr X to warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X complains about the Council’s bin collection service. He says he receives an assisted service and that the Council’s failure to collect his grey bin on one occasion led him having to arrange a visit to the tip to dispose of the bin’s contents. He says he should be reimbursed the £20 costs he incurred. He also says his complaint was not correctly recorded and not addressed correctly.
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 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 continue an investigation if we decide: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We are funded by the public purse and have an obligation to use the funds allocated to us in an efficient, effective and economic manner. We do not investigate every complaint we receive and we will not investigate when neither the claimed fault by the Council nor the injustice caused to the complainant is sufficient to warrant an investigation.
We will not investigate complaint handling issues when we are not investigating the substantive issue.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council or injustice caused to him to warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman