Complaints to West Lothian Council have plummeted in the past year, according to a new report. Operational Services, which covers public-facing services such as bin collections, public transport, and street cleansing, reported a 37% decline.
Annual Report Highlights Significant Reduction
Delivering his annual report on operations, head of service David Maule stated: “Overall across the service, there has been a significant reduction in customer complaints over the last year, with overall complaints in the service reducing from 2,469 in 2024/25 to 1,557 in 2025/26.”
Waste collection traditionally generates the bulk of service complaints, from missed collections to changes in service. It is one of the largest services provided by any council. In West Lothian, the budget for Waste and Recycling is £14.5 million for a department with 181 employees.
Previous Complaints and Improvements
The council faced criticism in the recent past due to policy changes around waste collection, which have now become embedded. As the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed, the council had more than 1,000 complaints lodged in the last three months of 2023. The bulk came from householders angry at missed bin collections and changes in opening hours at the county’s recycling centres, introduced in October that year.
That number of complaints plummeted by 400 within a year, due to factors including a milder winter. Two early drivers of complaint were the cut in operating hours of the council’s Community Recycling Centres (CRC) and the introduction of charges to uplift garden waste.
Service Responsibilities and Monitoring
The service is responsible for the collection and environmentally responsible management of all household waste. This includes waste collections to over 87,000 households, the provision of five household recycling centres, and 145 glass recycling points. Councillors still receive complaints about restricted opening at some recycling centres, including Linlithgow and Broxburn, and waste management teams continue to monitor usage. Last year, officers agreed to reconsider an initial ban on vans using the CRC sites, something that predates the introduction of the booking service in October 2023.
Positive Customer Feedback
A report to the council’s Environment and Sustainability PDSP revealed: “Waste and Recycling Services has seen improvement in route completion, customer satisfaction, and a decrease in customer complaints since moving to the 7-day waste collection service.” The percentage of customers who rated the overall quality of the service provided by Waste Services positively has a current target of 82%, and the end-of-year survey revealed the current value to be 85%.
