Agenda item

(Director of Neighbourhoods) to consider a short report summarising the conclusions reached at the recent special Neighbourhoods and Community Services Select Committee meeting held on 17 December 2015, looking at the waste contract.

Report to follow.

The Director of Neighbourhoods, Derek Macnab introduced his report on the recent meeting reviewing waste and recycling collection arrangements. This was a special meeting of this committee dedicated to this one subject, held on 17 December 2015 and was open to the public and members to put their questions to members of the Biffa management team and relevant council officers.

In order to ensure that the review focused on the main issues that Members wished to explore, this Committee in September 2015 established the scope of the review and how the meeting will be practically undertaken.  As a result, it was agreed that the review would be undertaken in 4 parts, covering the following issues:

1)    The procurement Process;

2)    Mobilisation and first 6 months of Contract;

3)    The revised arrangements from 12 May 2015.

Part four of the review was to reach a set of conclusions around what could have been done better and to recommend any key considerations with respect to how the Council could improve procurement and implementation of any future major service contracts. The report sought to reflect on the discussion that took place at that meeting in order to fulfil that requirement.

Following the review officers have reviewed the meeting and have noted the following key learning points:

Part One - Procurement:

·                Competitive Dialogue proved to be an effective means of procuring the new Waste Contract, from both the Client and Contractors perspective.

·                Although the Members interview only scored 10% of the quality scores, and on this occasion did not materially affect the final award, it was considered that Member Interviews are still beneficial for future service contracts.

·                The role that cross-party Portfolio Holder Advisory Groups play in shaping service contracts was recognised as a positive.

·                With contracts which involve major service changes, the costs to the Council should not be underestimated in terms of advising residents etc.  The £50,000 on the Waste Contract was in hindsight, too small.

Part Two – Mobilisation and First Six Months:

·                Overall the Waste and Recycling Contract mobilisation went well, with service quality maintained over the period November 2014 to May 2015.

·                Although TUPE Arrangements were satisfactorily completed for staff transferring from SITA to BIFFA, there were some concerns highlighted regarding communication with staff despite Biffa’s best endeavours.

·                The innovation forum established between client officers and contractor, proved useful in addressing service issues and identifying areas for improvement, this should be encouraged as good practice.

·                The original start date for the change to 4-day collection was not achieved, due to delays in vehicle acquisition and transfer of depots.  However, the revised date of 12 May was still in retrospect too early.

·                The number and type of informal arrangements that exist between householders and collection crews should not be underestimated and should be specifically addressed in terms of debriefing at end of contract periods.

·                Whilst it was felt that the problems encountered around the change to 4-day collection were not simply attributable to the prior notification information provided, it was felt that the letter to all residents could have been clearer.

·                The information contained on the Council’s Website was helpful, particularly the tool which converted postcodes into revised day collection arrangements.

Part 3 – Introduction of Revised Arrangements:

·                Start date for change to 4-day collection too optimistic in as much as new fleet was only delivered days before implementation, preventing crew familiarity and ability to address technical failures.

·                A phased approach was not adopted and had not been elsewhere, to the best knowledge of consultants and contractor.  However, should not be ruled out in future contracts, certainly there would have been value in test rounds with the new fleet.

·                The new IT system would have benefited from earlier implementation and a longer period of testing.  The round information from the start of revised collections was inaccurate, leading to whole streets being missed.  Lack of integration with client system also a major problem.

·                Biffa lost 20% of the workforce that transferred from Sita, the outgoing contractor.  This was a loss of valuable local knowledge which should have been captured in some way.  Changing staff onto rounds in areas that they were not familiar with and an initial reluctance to utilise knowledge of waste client officers, compounded the problem.

·                Some of the fleet purchased was not fit for purpose e.g. Street Sweepers that could not deal with rural road network.  In future, demonstration vehicles may prevent re-occurrence.

·                A need to utilise agency staff to cover additional rounds and cover vacancies, delayed the stabilisation of the contract.  Whilst tender evaluation demonstrated that adequate resources were to be employed, did not take into consideration the effect of staff turnover.  Issue to be explored in future contracts.

As a general conclusion it would appear that a number of the problems encountered by Biffa when introducing the revised 4-day collection arrangements, could have been avoided with additional time, e.g. to improve staff training and familiarisation with new vehicles and IT, to test drive new routes more thoroughly, to retain and utilise local knowledge of existing staff, to fully run in new fleet and to have operated longer from new depot locations, before the service change.

Councillor Surtees noted that Biffa were now relying on additional plant, which suggested they did not have enough equipment in the first place. Mr Macnab noted that was a fair comment and the Partnership Board would be discussing this with Biffa.

Councillor Janet Whitehouse commented that a lot of black bins seemed to have side waste next to them. Mr Durrani replied that it was still the Council’s policy that they did not collect side waste, but, because of the problems we had, they are now accepting more side waste to normalise the collections. They have now almost got the problems with assisted collection down to zero and were concentrating on this for now.

The Committee agreed to put this report up to the main Overview and Scrutiny Committee before it went on to Cabinet.

RESOLVED:

That the outcome of the Review of the Council’s Waste and Recycling Collection Arrangements be agreed and a report sent to Overview and Scrutiny Committee informing them of the key findings.