Outsourcing at root of increasing bin collection complaints

The outsourcing of waste collections by councils in England has led to an increase in the number of complaints, a new report warns.

A new report by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, Lifting the lid on bin complaints, shows the ombudsman upheld 81 per cent of its complaint investigations into council waste and recycling services last year. This is a leap from 59 per cent the year before.

With many councils outsourcing waste services, one of the common issues the ombudsman sees is insufficient council oversight of those contracts. Many of its complaints include councils not taking full ownership of ensuring service issues are responded to properly. This leaves residents frustrated at having to raise concerns about their bin collections to their council over and over again.

The ombudsman also found the following as common issues: repeated missed collections, sometimes compounded by the infrequent nature of collections; poor complaint handling and problems monitoring reported issues; and issues with assisted collections for those with disabilities or mobility problems.

The report suggests ways councils could improve their waste services and complaint handling, based on learning from the ombudsman’s casework. It will help local councillors support people who raise queries about bin collections.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s role is to remedy injustice and share learning from investigations to improve local public and adult social care services. It receives around 500 complaints and enquiries about bin collections per year and its uphold rate of over 80 per cent is much higher than the average uphold rate of 53 per cent for all types of investigation.

Michael King, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “Councils can contract out their waste services, but they cannot wash their hands of it. They are responsible and accountable for delivering those services, and for putting things right when they go wrong. Outsourced should not mean out of touch.

“Whether the service is outsourced or not, we shouldn’t be upholding 81% of the complaints we investigate – this is too much, particularly for a service that should be relatively simple to get right.

“Many thousands of bins are collected successfully every day in England. But the complaints we investigate tell the story of real public experiences. No matter how trivial it may seem to some, people are right to expect councils to take their concerns seriously and act on them. When things go wrong, it’s how councils put them right that really matters.

“I hope councils take onboard the learning points from our report, particularly by properly overseeing contractors; ensuring peoples’ concerns are listened to, and appreciating that contracting out and charging for services brings with it different expectations from the public.”