Decision Report 201503373

Summary

Miss C complained to the council after they refused to provide her with a bigger bin. She stated that the current provision was not sufficient for her needs as she had a large household. However, the council had carried out assessments of her waste and found material they said could have been recycled or disposed of in other ways. They stated that, had this taken place, she would have had sufficient capacity for her needs but Miss C disputed that the assessments had been accurate.

On investigation, we found that the council had photographic evidence to support their statements and, while this was not conclusive due to the nature of the assessments, there was no evidence available to suggest that they had acted incorrectly. We therefore did not uphold the complaint.

However, we also identified that the council's second stage complaint response had been very brief and lacked sufficient detail to fully explain the reasons for their decision. As such, we made recommendations in relation to this failing.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise to Miss C for the lack of detail provided in their complaint response; and
• reflect on this to ensure that relevant staff are aware of the level of detail required in a second stage response.