Summary: The Council failed to collect Mrs X’s garden waste fortnightly, as agreed in her subscription service, for a period of several months. This caused Mrs X avoidable frustration. The Council was at fault and has taken appropriate action to remedy the injustice caused, by agreeing to refund Mrs X for the cost of her year’s subscription service.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained her garden waste was not regularly collected after she moved into her property in July 2022.
2. Mrs X said she often had to take her garden waste to the tip and contacting the Council did not resolve the issues.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
6. I considered all comments made by Mrs X and the Council on a draft decision before making a final decision.

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What I found

What happened

7. The Council operates a paid subscription service for garden waste collections. Mrs X pays £50 per year to the Council to have her garden waste collected fortnightly.
8. In July 2022 Mrs X moved from her former property to another property within the same Council area. When she moved house, her garden waste stopped being regularly collected.
9. Mrs X reported the missed collections to the Council and in response to her reports, the refuse crew was told to go back to collect the waste. However this did not always happen.
10. Mrs X made a formal complaint to the Council. The Council responded to say it accepted that the garden waste bin had been missed several times and said a possible reason was that she had changed address mid-way through the subscription.
11. It also noted that due to the positioning of her property, her bin needed to be collected from the rear of the building which may have been causing confusion to the refuse crew.
12. The Council said it had given its refuse crew additional training and issued it with a warning.
13. A month after this, Mrs X complained to the Ombudsman. She said the Council had failed to collect her garden waste regularly and it had given her conflicting advice about when her bin collection day was. Mrs X had taken her garden waste to the tip regularly for the past five months despite paying the Council to collect it.
14. The Council informed us that Mrs X was given incorrect advice regarding her bin collection days and so it changed its collection days for all properties in November 2022 to prevent this confusion occurring again.
15. The Council also informed us that the issues continued in late November 2022, despite the action it took to address Mrs X’s formal complaint, because it had changed the refuse collection crew around this time.
16. The Council resolved this by sending a supervisor to visit the site where Mrs X’s garden waste was collected and verbally informing the refuse crew of the position of the property and the bin collection point, as well as adding a flag to the refuse crews’ electronic routing system.
17. The Council said it carried out a service improvement programme in late November 2022 which included improving the garden waste collection service and it had led to a reduction in complaints.
18. From February 2023 to date, the Council has been regularly collecting Mrs X’s garden waste.
19. The Council said it will refund Mrs X for the entire year’s subscription fee that she paid for the collection of her garden waste in 2022.

My findings

20. Between July 2022 and February 2023, the Council did not regularly collect Mrs X’s garden waste, which caused her frustration.
21. The action the Council initially took to address the issue did not resolve the problem. However, the action it took from late-November 2022 as part of its wider service improvement programme, did lead to Mrs X’s garden waste being collected fortnightly as agreed in her subscription.
22. In recognition of the poor service Mrs X experienced, the Council has agreed to reimburse Mrs X for the cost of one year of her garden waste subscription service, which would amount to £50. It has also demonstrated that it has carried out several service improvements and Mrs X has confirmed that her waste is now being collected. This is sufficient action by the Council to remedy the injustice caused.

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Agreed action

23. The Council has already agreed to pay Mrs X £50 in recognition of the service it failed to provide her. Within one month of the final decision, the Council has agreed to provide us with evidence it has done this.

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Final decision

24. I have completed my investigation. The Council was at fault and has taken appropriate action to remedy the injustice caused.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman