Local Government

Summary
Mr C complained about a council leaflet on refuse collection, the collection service itself, and how his complaint was handled. Mr C complained that the council failed to provide sufficient contact details on their flyers about refuse collection. He was unhappy that there was no postal address on the leaflet and that the only telephone number was a premium rate one. He also complained that the council put unreasonable restrictions on wheelie bin uplift. He said they would not collect his bin if it was filled to the extent that the lid will not close and they would not collect waste left beside his bin.

Following our enquiries, the council advised that the 0845 number on the leaflet offers them a range of benefits including allowing them to deal more efficiently with calls and that it is charged at a local rate from a BT landline. They said that they could not include all contact details and a postal address due to limitations of space on the leaflet and advised us of the various ‘no cost’ ways to contact them. They said that individuals could find full contact details in the ‘guide to council services and how to contact us’ publication which is delivered annually to households.

In response to the issue of bin and waste uplift, the council said that they did not uplift open bins or waste left beside bins for health and safety reasons. They explained that moving overloaded bins and handling bags of rubbish left beside the bins increased the risk of staff injury.

Although the complainant in this case was unhappy about collection  arrangements and the leaflet, we had to explain that decisions about services are taken at the council’s discretion. The council are entitled to decide what information to include on their leaflets and they are also entitled to decide the most appropriate way in which to collect the refuse in their area.

In response to our enquiries, the council explained their reasons in full. The fact that Mr C disagrees with the council’s decisions does not in itself give us grounds to seek further justification from the council on their position.

Mr C also complained that the council failed to deal with his complaint properly. He said that it was not dealt with by the person it was addressed to – the chief executive, that the response was not satisfactory, and that a comment he made had been ignored.

The council's complaints procedure states that all complaints are dealt with via a two stage process. The first stage is local resolution. This requires an officer within the service being complained about to respond to the complaint. The council therefore followed their procedure by directing Mr C’s initial complaint to the service concerned.  It was not for the chief executive to respond at that stage. We noted that in a letter to Mr C, the council provided information on the two stages of their complaints procedure. We studied both letters to Mr C and were unable to find any evidence to support his contention that the response was unsatisfactory. Of the remaining points looked at, we found no evidence to suggest that the council failed to take Mr C’s complaint seriously and considered that the council dealt with it properly.

Summary
Mr C lived in a property until 2003, and missed some council tax payments that were due on it. The council referred this to sheriff officers for collection, with some of the amount due being the subject of summary warrants. Mr C made payments towards the debt but did not pay it all, and the sheriff officers lost contact with him. The council eventually referred the arrears to a firm of specialist debt collectors. This firm were able to find Mr C’s new address and in early 2010 they contacted him to recover the amount due. Mr C complained that the council were asking him to pay for a property in which he had lived eight years before. He said that although he had no evidence, he believed he had already paid this and that the council had not been in contact with him about arrears in the last eight years.

When we investigated we found that although the council had not been particularly proactive in pursuing the arrears, sheriff officers lost touch with Mr C because he moved house. We also found that the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 allows the council up to 20 years to recover a debt if they obtain a summary warrant. The time limit generally runs from the date of the final demand. In Mr C's case, the council had obtained summary warrants and so were entitled to pursue recovery of the arrears.  They also provided a reasonable explanation about why the arrears were not pursued for most of the period involved.

Summary
Mr C complained that the council’s social work department failed to comply with their legal responsibility to carry out an assessment of his care needs and failed to provide him with care and support. He also complained that the council did not pay his claim for non personal care arrears.

Our investigation found that he had not made a reasonable request for an assessment. When it became clear that an assessment was required this was promptly carried out and a care and support plan produced. This detailed the services required, and those which will be provided by the council.

As we did not consider that the council were responsible for the delay and as Mr C was not contributing towards the cost of the care services, we did not find that the council were liable for any backdated monies.

Summary
Mr C was a member of a group concerned about plans to develop the Union Terrace Gardens area in Aberdeen. He complained about a report ‘Aberdeen City Centre – Developing a vision for the future’. He said that this was provided to councillors at a meeting where they took decisions about the proposals and was flawed. He was concerned that the report was biased towards supporting the City Square Project, and that references to the outcome of the public consultation about it were inaccurate. He gave specific examples of what he considered to be bias and inaccuracy.

After reading the report and the data used to inform it, we found that it generally
represented the position reasonably. We also noted that the detailed data behind the report, which provided the full details of responses to the public consultation, meant that the councillors concerned had access to all the relevant information in making their decisions.

Summary
Ms C lived in a three-bedroomed council house with her adult daughter. Ms C told the council that she was getting married and intended to move. She asked if the tenancy could pass to her daughter, Ms A. A council officer visited and gave Ms C a change of tenancy form and housing application for Ms A, which were  completed.  Ms C was told that it was unlikely Ms A would be allowed to take on the tenancy as the house was a family home and she was a single person, but that Ms A could apply for housing on her own behalf. Ms C said she asked for, and received, confirmation that Ms A would, at no point, become homeless.

Almost immediately after this, the council wrote to Ms C refusing the application to transfer the tenancy. They said that they were not required to provide Ms A with
alternative accommodation. They told Ms C to vacate the house within 28 days. Ms C wrote to the council with several questions about this. The deadline by which she was to leave the property was about two weeks later, and she asked for a response before she left. She did not get one, and wrote twice again after leaving. She received a detailed response to her letter about six weeks after moving out. This said that the council now regarded Ms A as 'statutory homeless' and they would make an offer of accommodation as properties became available. Ms A was by then staying with friends, but was offered a property within a couple of months.

We found that it was unreasonable of the council not to respond to Ms C’s letter until after she had vacated her property. The council told us they initially regarded her letter as an appeal against their decision and assumed Ms C would stay in the property until this was resolved. As she then vacated the property they assumed she had accepted the decision. However, we took the view that the initial letter was a request for information rather than an appeal and that in it Ms C pointed out the deadline concerned. We upheld both this complaint and the complaint that the council did not explain the options to Ms C. The council said that they told Ms C that if the transfer application was refused she could either remain in the property or, if she moved, Ms A could present as homeless. We found, however, that the council did not send out their standard termination advice letter nor did they explain that Ms C could have stayed in the house longer to organise, for example, the disposal of belongings. We noted that the council apologised for the delay and waived certain costs at the end of the tenancy.

Given this, we made recommendations only to deal with matters that we considered were still outstanding.

We did not uphold a complaint that the advice provided was misleading. Ms C felt that the council did not make it clear that Ms A could become homeless if her application was not approved. There was conflicting information about the advice given, and we agreed the council should have followed this up by providing information about how to terminate a tenancy. (They did, however, write and explain that they were not required to home Ms A - the implication of this is that, on a change of tenancy, she would become homeless.)

Recommendations

 We recommended that the council:

• issue an apology to Ms C for their shortcomings with regard to providing her with adequate information following the refusal of her request to transfer her tenancy; and
• review their current procedures to ensure that due process is followed when terminating tenancy agreements and ensure firstly, that a distinction is made between a refusal to transfer tenancy and the formal decision that a tenancy is being terminated: and secondly, that sufficient information is provided to their tenant. A copy of the revised process is to be sent to the Ombudsman.

These recommendations were amended on July 20 2011, because the original wording was incorrect. We apologise for this error and have taken steps to ensure that it is not repeated.