Care home waste fees wrong, says watchdog

The problem was highlighted by a care home owner, who said in one year he was wrongly charged almost £2,000.

An investigation by Local Government Ombudsman Anne Seex found that regulations didn’t allow councils to charge for disposing of non-clinical waste – but could do for collection – and that had been made clear in a Government directive issued in 1992.

She found the council guilty of maladministration and said it should refund the care home owner and any others as far back as 1992.

The unnamed care home owner realised he had been charged both for collecting waste and disposing of it when he checked through invoices after the issue was raised by a body he was member of, the English Community Care Association.

He wrote to the council; but they said they would only refund back to 2008.

The council said the 1992 regulations were ambiguous and the regulations weren’t clear until Defra wrote to councils in 2007.

The owner has since been refunded in full.

Hull Council said it would review its records and contact any care home that might have been affected. Of the 106 care homes in the city, 88 are run by the council.

It said: “We are disappointed with the outcome of the Ombudsman’s report; however the findings demonstrated that the council did not act in bad faith. The charging system for waste disposal is a complicated area of legislation and during 2007 the guidance from the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was clarified. The council subsequently stopped charging care homes for waste disposal and this report relates to charges made in the period before the guidance was updated.”