Agenda item

To consider the Waste Disruptions Recovery response.

The Chief Executive highlighted the three work streams undertaken within the Waste Disruptions Recovery response; to reverse the previous decision of Traffic Commissioner, to obtain a new Operator’s Licence and to put in place contingency arrangements to allow core operations to resume.

In response to questions raised by members on the recovery, the following was clarified:

·         Lightwood PLC were provided with two UDC refuse vehicles and inspected records, concluded that they could not assist due to concerns around the maintenance of records. As they were only able to offer two slots, officers chose to put more effort into Widdington and BDC who had greater available capacity.

·         BDC did a thorough examination on all the refuse vehicles which were sent to them in order ensure that they were the best standard for their staff who were working overtime. However, this meant that they pushed back on some of them for minor defects, such as a ripped seat cover or squeaking pipe, which were quickly rectified. No vehicle was sent back on road safety grounds.  

·         A range of refuse vehicles were offered to BDC, including two which were within a year old. Officers did not believe that the fleet contain any substandard vehicles, and as a result in further investment into the service, the Council were replacing three vehicles two years earlier than anticipated.

·         Additional staff had been deployed from within the Council to assist with logistics, most around Grade 7. After the Chief Executives request for mutual aid, they followed up any responses and contacted the relevant senior members of the staff at other authorities who could authorise any assistance.

·         Authorities in Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire were all contacted with requests for assistance, as proximity was more important than county boundaries. 

·         The Operators Licence belonged to the Council, however they were required to employ someone with the relevant qualification.

Members noted that, whilst the disruption was felt for longer, there was only two-and-a-half weeks between the Council’s Operator’s Licence being revoked and the operations restarting from the Canfield depot and this was commended. They also highlighted the proactive actions taken, which had not been listed in the agenda documentation, including deploying staff and requesting assistance from consultants prior to the revocation.

However, they raised concerns as to the information provided to the BDC crews to conduct their route. The current system had individual records for every household within the district which was incorporated into the in-cab technology used by the UDC refuse collectors. As an alternative option needed to be found for BDC to use, and the design of the technology made it difficult to translate elsewhere, crews were given maps, as well as UDC staff operating as a guide. Lists were often not in chronological order and the information fed back from staff was not completely accurate. Officers were working to improve the format of their instruction, such as translating routes into Google Maps to follow or using What3Words for harder to find locations.

Further concerns were raised regarding the accuracy of the communication to the public, as this was found at times to not be reflective of what was happening. Officers explained that trying to get the communications right was a steep learning curve as they were dealing with the difficulty of getting timely, accurate information as to what routes had been completed, along with the additional pressure to release the daily updates earlier. Nonetheless, they took an approach to only promise one day at a time and achieved between 80-90% of the catch-up collections which they advertised.

The communications from Facebook and the UDC website did not appear to be engaging with the number of residents that they’d anticipated as many instead chose to rely on their local “binfluencer”. However, the daily notices made it easier for these individuals to share the right information to community groups.

There was discussion around the mutual aid arrangements and planning ahead. Officers clarified that there were generic mutual aid arrangements in place, but it was not possible to make any formal agreements due to the unpredictability of events and the reliance on good relationships and other Council’s available capacity and resources at the time. Currently at UDC there were three triggers for business continuity measures: staffing, access to vehicles/premises and access to technology. It was a general approach with no defined single solutions, nor specific scenarios planned for. Moving forward, the Chief Executive was working on an exercise to prioritise the biggest risks at the council, based on the data captured, and work through both short- and long-term solutions to these. When specifically considering the Waste Service, there were also discussions taking place around Essex at an operational level to build greater resilience.

It was highlighted that before the recent events, there had been at least two other periods of disruption, which signalled a potential pattern of behaviour.