The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Miss X complains the Council failed to collect her recycling and refuse, and she was subject to verbal abuse from the crew. We find fault with the Council for the missed collections and behaviour of the crew, causing frustration and distress to Miss X. The Council has agreed to apologise to Miss X and take action to prevent this happening again.
The complaint
Miss X complains the Council failed to collect her recycling and refuse. The bins then overflow and the crew refuse to collect them the following week.
Miss X also complains of verbal abuse by the crew.
Miss X would like the bins collected regularly and compensation for the missed collections and abuse.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 have considered Miss X’s complaint and supporting information and have spoken to her about the complaint.
Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
What I found
Refuse and recycling collections Councils have a duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to collect household waste and recycling from properties in its area.
The Council’s practice is to make a weekly household waste and recycling collection and a fortnightly garden waste collection.
If the crew cannot clear a whole road they will return within two working days. This does not need to be reported to the Council, and there is no way to do so.
If there is a missed collection it must be reported online.
What happened Miss X emailed the Council in December 2021 as her recycling had not been collected for four weeks in a row.
The bins were now overflowing and the crew refused to take them.
Miss X says the crew were verbally abusive to her when she asked them to collect the recycling.
The Council said it would respond to Miss X within 4 working days. Miss X had to chase them for a response a month later.
In the response to Miss X, the Council said the crew had not reported any reasons for the missed collections, however clear instructions were issued to collect the recycling.
Miss X’s recycling was not collected again in January 2022, and she complained to the Council that her recycling and waste were now overflowing.
The Council escalated this to a stage two complaint. In the response to Miss X the Council said her address will be added to the monitoring list for at least four weeks.
This means a Waste Team Manager will visit the address and if there are issues, will aim to resolve them.
Miss X says her general waste was not collected over the Easter period and the Council have said this was due to some protests which were taking place. Other than that Miss X says her collections have been fine since she made the stage 2 complaint.
Analysis The Council failed to collect Miss X’s recycling for four weeks over the Christmas period. The crew did not report any reason for the missed collections.
This is fault as the missed collections should have been logged so the bins would not overflow.
Further the crew should not have behaved in such a manner towards Miss X when she approached them about her recycling. This caused distress to Miss X.
The Council say the timescale for responding to a follow up enquiry is 4 working days. Miss X waited a month and then emailed the Council. This is fault by the Council for not complying with its own policy.
We have investigated other complaints against the Council about missed collections. The Council has acknowledged the way in which this is monitored needs to be changed.
The missed collections caused frustration to Miss X. The Council have now seemed to remedy the missed collections.
Recommended action Within one month of the final decision the Council should write a personalised apology to Miss X for the missed collections, and include an apology for the behaviour of the crew when Miss X approached them.
The Council should provide us with evidence it has done so.
The Council should also review with the crew member(s) the event, and what can be learnt, and remind staff of their overall customer service responsibilities.
The Council should provide evidence of this in the next six weeks.
After our investigation of other complaints we have made recommendations to the Council about improving its services, and we have asked that compliance with our decisions should be monitored. So I have not made any further recommendations to improve the service.
Final decision
I find fault with the Council for missed waste collections and the crew behaviour. The Council has agreed to take the above action to remedy the distress caused to Miss X as a result and prevent this happening again.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman