The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council missing some of his bin collections, and how it handled his complaints.
There is insufficient significant personal injustice to Mr X caused by the bin issues to warrant investigation. We do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issue giving rise to the complaint.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council: repeatedly failed to collect general and recycling waste from his property; failed to properly deal with and reply to his complaints.
Mr X says the matter caused him confusion, stress and uncertainty. He says he was worried the uncollected waste may attract vermin and cause smells. He says he has been financially affected because he paid for a service he did not get.
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: any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained; or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information from Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X’s general waste was missed twice and not collected for a month, and his recycling was also missed twice, once in two consecutive months. While Mr X was concerned the uncollected waste might attract pests, he does not report this occurred. We understand the missed collections would have caused him inconvenience and annoyance and may have caused odours. But these impacts did not cause Mr X sufficient significant personal injustice. We also note Mr X says he was financially affected because he paid for four bin collections he did not receive, which would have been met through his council tax. Council tax is a general tax determined and payable on the basis of property value. It is not a fee for the receipt of a specific council service. The amount of Mr X’s council tax which went towards the collections he did not receive is a negligible sum, the loss of which does not amount to a significant personal injustice to him. We also recognise some collections Mr X did not receive were also not provided to his neighbours. But any impact on them is not Mr X’s personal injustice. Taken together, the impacts of the missed bin collections Mr X reports did not cause him such significant personal injustice to warrant us investigating so we will not do so.
Mr X also complains about the Council’s complaint-handling, including the content of responses, some officer actions and the time taken to provide some replies. He emphasised this issue when he raised his complaint with us. We do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling in isolation where we are not investigating the core issue which gave rise to the complaint. It is not a good use of our resources to do so. That limitation applies here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because: there is insufficient significant personal injustice caused to him by the core bin issues to warrant investigation; and we do not investigate councils’ complaint-handling where we are not investigating the core issue which gave rise to the complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman