Manchester City Council (24 013 013)
Category : Environment and regulation > Refuse and recycling
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 10 Jan 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about failures to collect bins according to schedule and return them to the collection point. Information we have seen shows collections are now being made according to published schedules and bins are being returned. We consider further investigation is unlikely to lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
- Mr X complains the Council’s contractor failed to return emptied bins despite advising it would do so.
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 further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mr X complained the workers failed to return refuse bins after collections.
- The Council apologised and advised it would correct this. Mr X says further collections were made and the bins were not returned.
- Mr X escalated his complaint. The Council apologised again and told its contractor to raise this with the relevant crew to ensure they put the bins back.
- Mr X says that the crews failed to collect the bins on three further occasions and the did not return them after a further two collections.
- In response to my enquiries the Council says the CCTV recording from the refuse trucks is automatically deleted after 30 days. However, it confirms it reminded crews to return bins to the collection points. It also confirms collections were made as scheduled from mid-December onwards and the bins were returned to the collection points.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because information from the Council suggests the collections are now being made as scheduled with bins being returned. We consider that further investigation will not lead to a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman