Summary: Mr X complained the Council’s contractor failed to collect his garden waste for several months. He also says the Council failed to revise his garden waste subscription. We find the Council was at fault for its delay in updating Mr X’s subscription for his garden waste collections. The Council has agreed to our recommendation to apologise to Mr X for his injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council’s contractor failed to collect his garden waste for several months. He also says the Council failed to revise his garden waste subscription.
2. Mr X says the matter has caused frustration and he had to make trips to the recycling centre to dispose of his waste.

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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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future 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 information from Mr X. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered information it sent in response.
6. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

7. The Council has a garden waste service which residents can subscribe to. When a resident subscribes, the Council’s contractor will collect the garden waste bin every two weeks. Residents need to pay each year to renew their subscription.
8. The Council employed a new contractor for its waste services in March 2024.
9. Mr X called the Council in early April to renew his garden waste subscription. The Council’s note of the call states the service crashed before the officer could send the form to the contractor for Mr X’s collections. However, the officer received payment from Mr X and made a note of his reference number.
10. Mr X called the Council in May. He said it failed to collect his garden waste. The Council noted on its internal system it had not added Mr X to the garden waste collection schedule. Mr X also complained to the Council the same day.
11. The Council checked the payment records and manually set up Mr X’s property account to start collections from the beginning of June.
12. The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint in June and apologised for the disruption to waste collection services in the borough. It said it was working with the contractor to resolve the issues. It told him to continue reporting missed collections.
13. Mr X responded to the Council and said it was not his responsibility to ensure it collected his bin. He also says it failed to revise his subscription status which meant he could not use its system to report a missed bin.
14. Mr X reported a missed collection at the end of June. The contractor collected the bin several days later.
15. Mr X has confirmed the issues with his garden waste collections are now resolved.

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Analysis

16. The Council was at fault for its delay in adding Mr X’s property to the garden waste collection schedule. He called in early April and paid for the service. However, due to a system error, the Council could not add his address to the schedule. Therefore, Mr X did not receive a garden waste collection service throughout April and May. It was only after Mr X called the Council in mid-May that it manually added his property to the schedule. It should have done this much sooner as Mr X had paid for the service and the Council was aware of the system error.
17. The Council says it would have told Mr X in April about the system error and that it had not added his property to the schedule. There is no evidence of this in the Council’s notes of the call. In any event, as the Council had the ability to manually update the system, it should have done so much sooner.
18. The Council’s fault caused Mr X some frustration. The Council acknowledged and apologised for the general disruption to its waste collection services in its complaint response, but it did not address and apologise for the specific issue with Mr X’s subscription. It should now do so. I welcome that Mr X is now receiving a regular garden waste collection.

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Agreed action

19. By 12 February 2025 the Council will apologise to Mr X for the injustice caused by the identified fault.
20. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above action.

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Final decision

21. There was fault by the Council, which caused Mr X an injustice. The Council has agreed to my recommendation and so I have completed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman