The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council replacing his general waste bin with a smaller one. It was fault for the Council to initially agree Mr X was eligible to keep a larger bin. But the injustice caused to Mr X by this fault is not significant enough to warrant investigation. The Council has apologised for the fault, and an investigation would not achieve a different outcome. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council applying its bin policy to justify an investigation, and we cannot achieve the outcome he seeks.
The complaint
Mr X lives in a four-person household. He complains the Council initially told him he could keep his larger general waste bin, only to replace it with a smaller one.
Mr X says his waste will not fit in the new bin and this extra bagged waste is attracting birds and rodents, which rip the bags open. He says he has to ask a relative to take the extra waste to the tip. Mr X wants the Council to give him back his larger general waste bin.
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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information from Mr X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council has introduced a policy to reduce the size of its general waste bins for most households of four people or fewer, to encourage residents to increase their use of the food, garden and recycling services. The Council considers applications from households of four or less if they request to retain the larger bins. Exceptions the Council may accept include households where someone has a medical condition which generates unavoidable extra waste.
It was fault for the Council to initially agree Mr X was eligible to keep his larger bin. I recognise this error would have caused Mr X annoyance and did not properly manage his expectations about the bin he would be able to use. But that is not sufficient injustice to Mr X, stemming from that error, to justify an investigation. The Council has also apologised for the error, which is in line with the outcome we may have sought had the Council not already provided it. There is no different outcome we would achieve from investigating.
Mr X says the bin is not big enough for his household’s general waste, causing him other inconveniences. But these claimed injustice does not stem from any fault by the Council; they stem from the Council applying its bin policy as normal to Mr X’s household. There is not enough evidence that the Council correcting its initial error, so its decision on Mr X’s bin was in line with its policy, involved fault. It was a decision the Council was entitled to make once it had adopted its policy. There is not enough evidence of Council fault causing Mr X’s claimed injustices to warrant investigation.
Mr X wants the Council to give him back his larger bin. We cannot order a council to not comply with a policy, which is what would be required to get the remedy Mr X seeks. That we cannot achieve the outcome Mr X wants from his complaint is a further reason for us not to investigate.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because: the Council’s fault did not cause him a significant personal injustice which warrants us investigating; and the Council has apologised for the fault, and we would not achieve any different outcome from investigating; and there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council applying its general bin policy to his household to justify an investigation; and we cannot achieve the outcome he seeks from his complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman