Agenda item

Scrutiny review into the provision of refuse & recycling services.

Members received a presentation from Paul Morgan of Amec Foster Wheeler which provided performance and value for money benchmarking data. During the presentation, the following points were made:

·         Across the East Midlands, HBBC had the fifth lowest cost of waste collection

·         HBBC’s net cost of refuse collection was significantly lower than average (around 60%) and around 64% of the average cost for recycling collections. For refuse collection costs, HBBC was second lowest out of 15 and for recycling costs, third lowest out of 11

·         Comparing costs of service delivery to the size of the authority (based on household numbers), the analysis indicated that HBBC’s service was one of the lowest cost for its size. In addition, it was shown to have a lower cost than a broadly comparable outsourced service

·         The report recommended insourcing the recycling service based on the fact that the current in-house residual and garden waste collection services were well managed and provided value for money. It was suggested that providing all three service in-house would further improve operational efficiency

·         Customer satisfaction with waste collection at 91.2% was higher than four other East Midlands authorities sampled in the report.

During the ensuing discussion, the following comments were made:

·         The residual waste collection service generated a significant saving as a result of bringing it in house. Similarly, a saving could be made by bringing the recycling service back in house compared with outsourcing

·         In relation to residual waste, issuing smaller bins would only result in a marginal saving on collection and would involve a large initial outlay, so was not recommended

·         The need for an additional collection round in response to housing growth

·         Moving to a co-mingled recycling collection would generate savings

·         Investigations were required into flexibility of items collected for recycling, for example the ability to recycle black plastic and plastic bags

·         The cost of providing a food waste collection service was prohibitive and not recommended

·         The hard work and achievements of the refuse & recycling service over the years should be acknowledged.

Mr Morgan highlighted the performance of the refuse and recycling services and stated that this stood out as very positive, particularly in comparison to many of the reviews he had undertaken.

Councillor Bill moved that “Scrutiny Commission notes the report of the external consultant and considers that the authority has been shown to provide good in house services for refuse and recycling in terms of value for money and customer satisfaction. The Scrutiny Commission recommends to the Executive that the current residual and garden waste services should continue and the dry recycling service should be brought in house from April 2018. It also supports the maintenance of the current frequency of collections, the move to co-mingled recycling and the further development of the commercial trade waste service”

Councillor Lay seconded the motion and proposed additional recommendations to the Executive in relation exploring options for increasing items that could be recycled, presentation of the report to Council and celebrating the performance of in-house services by inviting staff to an event for that purpose. The motion was seconded by Councillor Bill.

Councillor Lynch proposed an amendment to change the word “notes” to “welcomes”. This was agreed by the mover and seconder of the original motion.

It was subsequently

RESOLVED – Scrutiny Commission

(i)            Welcomes and endorses the report of the external consultant and considers that the authority has been shown to provide good in house services for refuse and recycling in terms of value for money and customer satisfaction;

(ii)           RECOMMENDS to the Executive that the current residual and garden waste services should continue and the dry recycling service should be brought in house from April 2018;

(iii)          Supports the maintenance of the current frequency of collections, the move to co-mingled recycling and the further development of the commercial trade waste service;

(iv)         RECOMMENDS that the Executive explores options for increasing the items that can be collected for recycling;

(v)          Refers the report to Council for information;

(vi)         RECOMMENDS holding an event to celebrate the performance of the in house services.