Decision Report 201607642

Summary

Mr C reported missed collections of his recycling bins to the council on their web portal. He said that sometimes the problem was rectified within one week, however he felt that over time, reporting the missed collections did not seem to make a difference. Mr C raised a formal complaint with the council and the council responded by apologising and advising that all refuse had been uplifted from his property. They explained the problem was due to an operative error.

Mr C requested that his complaint be escalated to stage two of the complaints procedure. The council issued their final response and they explained that the depot had been in the process of reviewing their recycling routes and they anticipated that the issues would be resolved. Mr C contacted us and told us that the council had failed to collect the recycling bins at his property on at least seven occasions over the previous six months.

We found that the council had unreasonably failed to collect Mr C's bins over a protracted period of time and we found little evidence that the council took adequate steps to prevent this from happening. We also found that they had failed to properly investigate Mr C's complaints, as their responses to his complaints did not provide reasons for the missed bin collections. We upheld both of Mr C's complaints.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Write to Mr C with an apology and provide him with a copy of the schedule for bin collections at his property.
• Monitor the area for a period of eight weeks to ensure that bins are collected on schedule.

In relation to complaints handling, we recommended:

• Take steps to ensure that all complaints handling staff are familiar with the complaints handling procedure, and identify and address any additional training needs.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.