The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint about a missed refuse collection. This is because Mrs B has not suffered a significant injustice which would justify our involvement.
The complaint
Mrs B complains the Council did not collect her bin as scheduled. Mrs B also says the Council has not said when the collection crew returned to collect her bin. Mrs B considers the Council has been arrogant and accused her of lying. Mrs B would like the Council to make a good will payment for the missed collection and apologise for calling her a liar.
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 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)) This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures.
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs B.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
We do not normally investigate complaints about one or two missed refuse collections. We do not expect councils to pay a financial remedy for a single missed collection or a limited number of missed collections.
I find this missed collection has not caused Mrs B a serious or significant injustice which would justify public money being spent on an investigation or the pursuit of a financial remedy by the Ombudsman.
And, an investigation solely into what happened after Mrs B reported this missed collection would not be a good use of our limited resources.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint because she has not suffered a serious or significant injustice which would justify an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman