Summary: We will not investigate Mr C’s complaint about a missed garden waste collection. This is because Mr C has not suffered a serious or significant injustice which would justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr C complains his garden waste was not collected during an important gardening period because the Council failed to provide the required sticker in time. Mr C also says he was unable to speak to a relevant officer about what happened and the Council was at fault for the way it handled his complaint about this matter.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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))

3. 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. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
4. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are not investigating the substantive issue complained about.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by Mr C.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. We will not investigate this complaint.
8. We have limited resources and must focus our investigations on complaints where a person has suffered a serious or significant injustice.
9. I find the missed collection of Mr C’s garden waste has not caused Mr C a serious or significant injustice which would justify public money being spent on an investigation by the Ombudsman.
10. Because we are not investigating the substantive matter complained about, an investigation solely into the Council’s handling of Mr C’s complaint is not justified.

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Final decision

11. For the above reasons we will not investigate this complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman