The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: The Ombudsman finds the Council at fault for failing to collect Mrs B’s assisted household waste and recycling. This caused Mrs B avoidable frustration and inconvenience. The Council will apologise to Mrs B, complete service improvements, and pay her £200.
The complaint
The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs B, complained the Council regularly failed to collect her assisted household and recycling waste between April and October 2021. Mrs B is elderly and a sole carer for her husband who has a medical condition. She says she experienced distress, time and trouble reporting each incident and complaining to the Council.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about councils and certain other bodies. Where an individual, organisation or private company is providing services on behalf of a council, we can investigate complaints about the actions of these providers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 25(7), as amended) Veolia provides the Council's household waste and recycling service for the Council. We can investigate Veolia as it provides services for the Council to fulfil legal duties and powers in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (see paragraph 11).
We investigate complaints about 'maladministration' and 'service failure'. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as 'injustice'. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered: information from Mrs B relevant law and information on the Council's website and its response to my enquiries.
Mrs B and the Council had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I carefully considered all the comments I received.
What I found
Relevant law, policy and guidance The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to any body which carries out a public function, including a council. It aims to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people. Councils are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, they must make them. (Equality Act 2010, section 20 (3)) Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to collect household waste and recycling from properties in their area.
The Council collects household waste and recycling once a fortnight. It provides assisted collections for people who cannot move their bins and boxes due to a disability or age.
The website states the selected point for leaving bins should be convenient for the resident and easy for the collection crew to access.
When a resident reports a missed collection, the Council will arrange a further visit to remove waste. On completing the collection, the Council closes the report.
What happened Mrs B's household refuse includes sanitary waste which she places in a separate bin the Council provided. Veolia collects Mrs B's household waste (including the sanitary waste) from the front and her recycling from the back. There is a side pathway along a courtyard to get from the front to the back of the house. Mrs B keeps her bins at the top of some steps. She said the Council told her to do this.
Mrs B’s account Mrs B says she reported missed household waste collections between April and July 2021 and missed recycling collections between April and October.
Mrs B says the Council failed to collect her recycling for six weeks during summer. She noticed this caused a bad smell and felt it was a potential health hazard.
Mrs B believes the Council has records of all her reports. She says she mainly contacted by telephone but also by e-mail and the website. She says she had to wait about 15 minutes for someone to answer her calls and spend more time explaining the problem. Mrs B says she made about three calls a week between April and October.
In May, Mrs B formally complained to the Council about missed waste and recycling collections. She mentioned previous assurances of improvements from the Council which had not happened. Mrs B asked why Veolia's technical issues were affecting her collections and sought compensation.
The Council responded to Mrs B's complaint four days later. The Council admitted fault and apologised. The letter did not specify the dates, or the type of collection Veolia missed. The Council said it had stressed the importance of getting future collections right to Veolia who would remind its collection crews.
Mrs B requested a further response to her complaint saying Veolia missed a further collection. She said the Council told her it would deal with the missed collection urgently, but nothing had happened.
The Council replied to Mrs B at the start of July, apologising for missed collections. The letter gave no details of dates or any more information. The Council said it would work closely with Veolia to ensure future collections happened on time but did not agree to pay Mrs B any compensation.
Unhappy with the Council's responses, Mrs B complained to us. She told us there have not been any more missed collections since. Mrs B also told us the Council gave her chocolates and flowers as a token gesture for the missed recycling collections.
The Council’s account The Council initially stated that it only had records of eight missed collections. Six before the second complaint response and two more since. It said Mrs B contacted it many times to report the same missed collections.
The Council provided details of three missed recycling collection reports in June, August and September. It said it did not have any further reports from September onwards.
The Council said the crew for Mrs B's area was new and did not know they needed to empty the sanitary bin at the same time as the household waste.
The Council also told me: The new waste collection software did not work well because of the arrangement at Mrs B's property which had different collection points for recycling and household waste for two separate crews.
Mrs B's address was a 'narrow-access' round during Veolia's new contract, due to the road layout. The new crew and vehicles did not know the layout or properties well.
If the crew could not access the road at the front of the property, (due to parked cars, for example) they could not reach the recycling at the back either.
Mrs B keeps the bins at the top of steps. This meant the crew had to lift more than was safe under health and safety law. The Council said the crew would have needed to carry sacks from the bins to the lorry which might have impacted collection.
In June, the crew failed to follow instructions about the recycling collection point being at the back of the house. The collection points were quickly updated on the software. Unfortunately, this change caused the reverse issue as household waste was subsequently missed from the front.
The Council has since set 'proximity alerts' which allows crews to anticipate the layout at Mrs Bs property. Collections were also monitored on six occasions to ensure the problem had been resolved.
There were staff shortage issues due to the Covid-19 pandemic which meant new crew members went on different rounds.
On further enquires, the Council provided a list of all collections from Mrs B's address between 15 June and 14 December 2021. This shows three missed household waste collections and nine missed recycling collections. Mrs B submitted 13 missed collection reports. However, some of these were for the same missed collection.
The above record does not account for the collections Mrs B says were missed in April and May 2021. However it confirms that no further collections have been missed between 12 October and 14 December 2021.
Was there fault causing injustice?
Missed household waste collections It is not possible to say exactly how many household collections Veolia missed because of Mrs B and the Council's differing accounts, but I do not need to make a finding on this as the Council accepted it was at fault.
The Council said it would ensure Veolia sent their crews a reminder after the second complaint. Mrs has B confirmed that her household waste collections have not been missed from July 2021 onwards.
The Council admitted fault and took action, but it could have acted sooner. This added fault of delay meant the period from April to July was difficult for Mrs B. Dealing with reporting missed collections and having to use the complaints procedure placed an extra burden on her. She suffered avoidable distress, time and trouble.
Missed assisted recycling collection The Council records show that a significant number of recycling collections were affected. It has accepted problems with Mrs B's recycling collection including incorrect use of software, a failure by the crew to follow instructions, and a potentially unsafe system of work for the crew in heavy lifting due to the location of the bins at the top of steps. All of these issues are faults in the service to Mrs B.
The Council noted Mrs B's bins were at the top of steps, but Mrs B says the Council told her to place the bins there. There is no reason for me to doubt Mrs B. The crew should have reported concerns about heavy lifting to Veolia's managers for further action and the failure to do so was fault. However, it was also the Council's responsibility under the Equality Act to advise its contractor to implement any reasonable changes to the refuse service to accommodate Mrs B's disabilities. If there needed to be further changes to the adjustments the Council already agreed, then the Council should have discussed these with Mrs B. The failure to do so was fault.
I note Veolia/the Council has since set alerts which allows crews to anticipate the layout at Mrs B's property. Collections were also monitored on six occasions to ensure the problem had been resolved. This action will have addressed the issues identified with Mrs B's property and will reduce the risk of recurrence in future.
I appreciate the Council faced challenges in collecting refuse from Mrs B's property. It was during the pandemic and introduction of a new collection regime. I have also taken into consideration the Council's attempts to reduce the problems. However, it remains the Council's responsibility to provide a service to an acceptable standard. It failed to do so in Mrs B's case.
In my view Mrs B was affected for a longer period than necessary. The Council should have investigated, identified, and addressed the causes sooner. This would have avoided a prolonged period of inconvenience for Mrs B Mrs B told me there have not been any problems with missed recycling collection since December. So I am satsified the actions already taken have solved the problems identified in this statement.
Agreed action
When a council commissions another organisation to provide services on its behalf it remains responsible for those services and for the actions of the organisation providing them. So, although I found fault with Veolia, I have made recommendations to the Council.
The Council has already apologised to Mrs B for failing to collect her assisted household and recycling waste in its complaint responses. This is a partial remedy. The Council has agreed that it will: send a further letter of apology for the further missed collections which occurred after the complaints procedure ended.
pay Mrs B £200 for her time and trouble in trying to resolve her complaint and having to bring it to the Ombudsman.
The Council has been proactive in its response to my enquiries. It suggested the following changes to Mrs B's assisted collection which will hopefully improve the service further: Mrs B should place her bins in the same location to avoid any further confusion.
It will give Mrs B bags to put her waste in before she bins it. The crew can take the bags out of the bins with no need for any heavy lifting.
Veolia has already told the crews to report any problems to their supervisor straight away so it could resolve any issues quickly.
It will liaise with Mrs B to make sure these agreed actions are in place and working smoothly. I would add that it monitors the collections for four weeks.
The Council will complete the above actions within two months of my final decision.
Final decision
I find fault in the Council's assisted collection service. This fault caused Mrs B an injustice. I have completed my investigation on the basis that the Council has agreed to implement the recommended remedy.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman