Trafford Council has agreed to review the way it monitors missed bin collections after the Ombudsman upheld half a dozen complaints.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman investigated a number of complaints which included issues such as assisted bin collections for elderly or disabled people not being put back in the right place. For one disabled man, this meant the bins blocked him from getting out of his house.
In another case, residents of one block of flats were forced to regularly collect their communal bin from a car park, some 100 yards away.
The Ombudsman upheld six people’s complaints about their bin collections between April and December 2019 and has now issued a public report because of the volume of complaints it was receiving.
‘Although Trafford Council has responded appropriately to these people’s reports, this has not stopped their problems from happening again. The council’s complaints process has not allowed it to learn from its monitoring of the service, before escalating the complaints to me,’ said LGO Michael King.
‘I’m pleased the council has agreed to the changes to its complaints process I have recommended and hope this will now allow it to recognise where improvements need to be made to the service it provides.
‘Anyone who is experiencing problems with the refuse collection service should first have completed the council’s complaints process before we can register a complaint. Any complaints that then come to us will be looked at on a case-by-case basis.’
Four of the people who have complained will be given £100 to acknowledge the time and trouble they have gone to in bringing their complaints, while the people living in the block of flats will be given £150 in recognition of the injustice caused over a number of years.
