Agenda item

In accordance with its decision taken at its meeting held on 10 September 2019, Council will consider the detailed results of the outcome of the review by the Resources and Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee of the implementation of the new Waste & Recycling Collection Service.

Further to Minute 59 (10.9.19), Council considered the detailed results of the outcome of the review by the Resources and Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee of the implementation of the new Waste & Recycling Collection Service.

Council recalled that, at its meeting held on 10 September 2019, it had considered a motion submitted by Councillor Fowler in respect of the waste and recycling service following the recent move from weekly collection of black refuse sacks from most homes to a fortnightly wheeled bin collection service. The wording of Councillor Fowler’s motion had been as follows:-

“That this Council recognises the anger, concern and inconvenience caused to the residents of the Tendring District as a result of the introduction of the new refuse collection arrangements.

That this Council instigates a review of the issues arising from the new system and the manner of its introduction by the appropriate overview and scrutiny committee with the instruction that the committee reports its findings to the next ordinary meeting of the Council.”

Council, in considering that motion, made the following decision:-

“That this Council notes that a review of the issues arising from the new Waste and Recycling collection system and the manner of its introduction is to be conducted by the Resources and Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee at their meeting on 17th February 2020, as part of that Committee’s work programme.

The detailed results of such review will be reported to the following Council meeting.”

The Resources and Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee thereupon, at its meeting held on 17 February 2020 (Minute 54 referred), undertook the aforementioned scrutiny review and made the following recommendations to Cabinet namely that:

“a) To note, based on experience locally from the previous major change in waste collection arrangements, this Committee appreciated that the 2019 roll out of the wheelie bins/new waste service was always going to have some pain. However, that pain was more than it should otherwise have been. What contributed to this included:

- Insufficient/overloaded communication channels in to the Council to report problems and timely responses to those enquiries.

- Problems with staffing in the team and particularly recruitment to temporary contract posts.

- The consequences of the route changes implemented by Veolia (the Council’s contractor) to accommodate the changed waste collection service.

However, the Committee acknowledges the hard work of Officers to address and overcome those issues and to achieve the current position, which is one the Committee wishes to record as moving positively to the good standard expected. Cabinet is recommended to seek to capture learning from this roll out for the delivery of future major change in service delivery.

b)    To request the Portfolio Holder for Environment to write to Essex County Council in an effort to address the continuing issue of the littering from waste being moved from the waste transfer stations by or on behalf of the Waste Disposal Authority and the related cleansing of that litter on the A120 around that waste transfer station.

c)    To consider this Committee’s disappointment at the limited statements provided to it as to the Portfolio Holder’s future ambition for the service; including improving recycling levels further over the remainder of the contract and to request that a report on this ambition/vision be submitted to this Committee in September 2020.

d)    To arrange for the submission of proposals for revised targets for recycling rates in the District for 2020/21, as part of the Council’s Performance Monitoring System, to this Committee’s meeting on 23 March 2020 (and that comparable recycling rates be reported to the Committee from the other Districts in Essex and any appropriate commentary on the prospect of such rates being achieved in Tendring where the rates are higher than locally).

e)    To pursue the stated intention of arranging a site visit for all Councillors to waste and recycling centres as part of developing understanding by Councillors of these activities and this site visit should be organised prior to September 2020.

f)     That the clear information should be provided to residents on the recycling processes of material collected from homes in the District, further information be provided on practical waste minimisation measures for residents and that, in time, a summary of the Council’s Climate Reduction measures be provided to all households (perhaps with the annual Council Tax Notification).”

In the absence of a meeting of Cabinet in the early period of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in the UK, the Leader of the Council made a formal executive decision on 24 April 2020 in which he both noted the Resources and Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s recommendations and endorsed the Environment and Public Space Portfolio Holder’s responses thereto as set out below:

“(a) I would like to thank the Committee for a thorough and robust review of the roll out of the new Contract.  I do think that it is unfortunate that whilst the Committee acknowledges the hard work of officers the actions of a small number of Councillors, and their inappropriate communications with officers has unnecessarily added to the workload faced by officers in rolling out the new contract.    

(b)   I will certainly pick this up with my Officers and make sure that our concerns are addressed with ECC and request that action is taken to deal with the issue.

(c)    I do not recognise this issue, other than as an opportunity to criticise me as portfolio holder for information, I was not asked to provide except in an ‘off the cuff’ fashion at the Meeting, bearing in mind the subject of the agenda item which was to review the implementation of the new waste and recycling service.  I will bring forward in due course an options paper to consider what further measures can be put in place to increase recycling rates, within our Budget parameters.

(d)   As has been outlined to the Committee previously comparable statistics are only useful as a guide as there are different arrangements in place and different costs associated with those different arrangements in other Districts and of course Tendring residents are still getting used to the new arrangements.  Revised performance indicators will of course be put in place in due course.

(e)   This matter is already in hand and on Tuesday 25 February Damian Williams spoke to me about the requested tour of a Veolia recycling facility. He said it is currently being arranged and invited me to write the invitation to Members when final details are known.

(f)    I will be discussing these suggestions with officers.”

Councillors I J Henderson, Stock OBE, Bush, Talbot and Steady addressed the Council on the subject matter of this item.

It was moved by Councillor M E Stephenson and:-

RESOLVED that Council receives and notes the detailed results of its scrutiny review as required by virtue of the motion approved by Council on 19 September 2019, and as set out in this report, together with the responses of the Portfolio Holder for Environment and Public Space to the recommendations arising from the review (as endorsed by the Leader of the Council).