The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about missed refuse collections resulting from strike action by the Council’s refuse collection crews. This is because the complaint is about an issue which affects all or most of the people in the Council’s area and the law does not allow us to investigate such matters.
The complaint
The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council has failed to collect his household waste due to strike action by its collection crews. He wants the Council to refund his council tax payments meant for the collections which have not taken place.
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 effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully.
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate. We cannot investigate something that affects all or most of the people in a council’s area. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(7), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
From time to time councils may be affected by industrial strike action by its employees or contractors. It is not for us to comment on the rights and wrongs of such action and we cannot say councils must give in to the demands of those who choose to strike.
The strike in this case affects all or most of the residents in the Council’s area and Mr X is affected by it in the same way as any other resident. He has had to dispose of his rubbish himself and is frustrated that he has paid for collections as part of his council tax which have not taken place.
Because the issue affects all or most of the residents in the area the exclusion set out at Paragraph 3 applies; we cannot therefore investigate this complaint.
While I appreciate Mr X is frustrated there is no entitlement to a refund of council tax simply because a resident does not use a service or where the council, for some reason, does not provide it.
Mr X is also unhappy with the Council’s handling of his complaint but the courts have said that where we cannot investigate a complaint about the main or underlying issue, we cannot normally investigate related issues either. So, where the substance of a complaint is not subject to investigation, the Ombudsman does not investigate the Council’s handling of the issue in isolation. This is because there is little we could achieve by looking at the Council’s handling of a complaint about a matter which itself is not within our jurisdiction to investigate.
Final decision
We cannot investigate this complaint. This is because it is about an issue which affects all or most of the people in the Council’s area.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman