The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s bin service. There is not a significant enough personal injustice caused to Mr X by the matter to warrant investigation. We could not add to the Council’s investigation of Mr X’s claims of harassment and victimisation, or get a different outcome. The harassment allegation is a police matter, and Mr X’s allegation of property damage by bin staff is a legal liability matter for an insurer or courts to determine.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council’s bin staff: do not return his emptied bin to the right location and leave it obstructing his driveway or up against his wall; damaged his wall by slamming his bin against it; has victimised and harassed him for a year.
Mr X says the matters have caused him a lot of stress, worry and anxiety. He wants the bin crew to return his bin to the correct location.
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 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)) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information from Mr X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We recognise bin crews leaving empty bins obstructing Mr X’s driveway or against his wall causes him some frustration and inconvenience from having to move them to where he wants them to be. But that is not significant enough personal injustice to justify us using public money to investigate this part of the complaint.
Mr X says the Council’s bin staff damaged his wall when returning his bins. This is a claim of property damage, which is a legal liability issue. Only an insurer or court can decide liability in property damage claims. If Mr X considers the bin crew has damaged his wall, he may wish to make an insurance claim. If the insurers deny liability, then it would be a matter only a court could determine. It would be reasonable for Mr X to take his claim to court if that is required. This is because the Ombudsman can only make recommendations, whereas the courts may make a binding ruling on the claim, and the court provides a low-cost route to pursue such a legal liability claim.
Mr X says the bin crew has victimised and harassed him. In 2021, the Council accepted it made an error when advising bin staff to replace Mr X’s bin against his wall, rather than away from the wall as he had wanted. Mr X believes this was an example of harassment. The Council officer responsible visited him to apologise in person and explain their misunderstanding. That apology was a suitable outcome for this part of the complaint and is in line with the one we may have sought had the Council not already provided it. We will not consider this issue further because we could not add to the Council’s previous response and investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
Mr X’s complaint to the Council refers to incidents between him and members of the bin staff. There is disagreement about those events with allegations and counter-allegations of offensive behaviour by all parties. We will not investigate these incidents because we could not add to the Council’s investigation, and it is unlikely we could make a finding where it is one person’s word against the other’s.
If Mr X considers these incidents amount to harassment, that would be a matter for the police because harassment is a criminal matter. We cannot make findings on allegations of criminal acts.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because: there is not a significant enough personal injustice caused to Mr X by the Council not returning his bin to where he wants it to warrant investigation; and Mr X’s claim of property damage by bin staff is a legal liability matter for an insurer or the courts to determine, and it would be reasonable for him to pursue that route should he wish to do so; and we could not achieve a different outcome from the Council apology already provided to Mr X for its officer’s error in 2021; and we could not add to the Council’s investigation of his claims of harassment and victimisation, or achieve a different outcome; and his harassment allegation is a criminal matter for the police.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman