Agenda and minutes

To receive the minutes of the meeting of the Joint Waste Services Collection Committee held on 15 January 2018.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the Joint Waste Collection Services Committee meeting held on 15 January 2018 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Matters Arising

Minute 19/JW Potential Expansion of the Joint Waste Collection Services Contract

It was reported that Tandridge District Council was expected to make a decision on a proposal to join the Joint Waste Services Contract on 1^st March 2018.

Waverly Borough Council was expecting to receive their Stage 2 report from Amey week commencing 26^th February 2018.

Members are invited to declare any disclosable pecuniary interests and non pecuniary interests they may have with respect to matters which are to be considered at this meeting. Members who consider they may have an interest are invited to consult the Monitoring Officer or the Democratic Services Manager prior to the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

To receive an update on the progress being made to mobilise the Joint Waste Contract across the partner authority areas.

The Committee received a report providing an update on the mobilisation of the joint waste contract across the partner authorities.

It was reported that the contract had been mobilised in Surrey Heath on 5 February 2018.  Crews were driving the same refuse, recycling and garden waste rounds that had been in place under the previous contract and additional separate food waste collection rounds had been added.  The current level of reported missed refuse and recycling collections was at a similar level to those before the mobilisation. The number of missed food waste collections being reported was higher than previously however it was being reported by the Contractor that the majority of food waste bins were empty when they had returned and the rise in reports was attributed to residents forgetting about the introduction of separate food waste collection rounds.

Residents had encountered significant problems when attempting to register for garden waste collections through the online portal; a factor that was contributing to a significant rise in the number of calls to the Contact Centre and additional staff had been brought in to help residents register for the service.  It was acknowledged that the problems had been the subject of a large amount of negative feedback on social media and the Committee expressed concern that Amey appeared to be doing little to counteract this. 

It was reported that to date approximately 5,500 households had now registered for garden waste collections however this was well below the 10,000 households that had made use of the previous scheme. Amey would be writing to all residents to remind them that they needed to register for the service however it was recognised that the level of registrations was well below what had been expected. 

The Committee stressed that improvements had to be made to the online registration forms before mobilisation took place in Mole Valley. 

Amey had agreed to commit additional funding into the development of their Customer Management System to provide additional functionality. Once complete, this would provide Joint Waste Service staff and all partner authority contact centres with an improved system for managing and monitoring all customer interactions and analysing the data to better understand and deal with issues as quickly as possible.

The Committee noted the report.

To consider a report setting out the performance measures for the joint waste contract for the third quarter (October to December 2017) of the 2017/18 financial year.

The Committee received a report setting out the performance of the Joint Waste Contract during the third quarter (October to December) of 2017/18.  The report included financial indicators, performance against key performance indicators, a summary of tonnage data, performance against local performance indicators, updates on disposal points, workforce matters and health and safety matters.

It was reported that the overall first time collection rate in Elmbridge at the end of December 2017 was 99.91% and the number of missed collections continued to decrease.  Following the introduction of new routes in December 2017 the targets for missed collections in Woking had been reset.  At the end of December the overall first time collection rate in Woking was 99.84%. 

The number of missed assisted collections in Elmbridge had initially been high due to the fact that some data had not been available to crews.  Where a collection had been missed the original visiting crews were tasked to revisit the property in question to help them develop their knowledge of their routes and reduce the number of missed collections further.

A litter and detritus survey in Elmbridge had found that performance was not within the KPI target and the street cleansing cycle was being looked at in more details to ensure that resources were deployed effectively.

It was reported that although a national shortage of Class 2 LGV drivers meant that is was proving difficult to recruit sufficient driver Amey was working to identify solutions to the problem including: converting long term agency drivers into full time Amey employees and upskilling existing staff through an apprenticeships scheme.  Amey was also reviewing its pay scales to reduce the differential between Amey’s current rates of pay and national averages.

Although Suez had a stated turnaround time of 20 minutes at its waste transfer stations this did not include the time that collection crews spent waiting to access them. Amey was exploring ways of recording the time that crews spent queuing to access waste transfer stations to ascertain the extent of the problem and identify ways that waiting times might be reduced. 

It was noted that the performance report was currently set out according to the requirements of the contract however the format of the report would change as more data became available and improvements were made to the reporting process which would enable comparisons to be drawn between the partner authorities.

The Committee noted the report.

To consider a report setting out the current financial position of the Joint Waste Services Partnership.

The Committee received a report providing an update on the Joint Waste Services budget. 

The Committee noted that the initial budget had been predicated on a number of assumptions and estimated costs and a revised budget of £638,712 had been approved by the Committee in November 2017.  It was reported that, as of 22 January 2018, a total of £306,701 had been spent against this budget with £138,927 having been spent during the period 1^st October to 31^st January 2018.

It was noted that the soft start used to mobilise Surrey Heath was estimated to cost £62,351 and it was anticipated that this could be covered by savings made on the initial budget.

The Committee noted the report.

The next meeting of the Joint Waste Collection Services Committee is scheduled to take place on Thursday 17 May at 10am.

It was noted that the next scheduled meeting of the Joint Waste Collection Services Committee would take place on Thursday 17 May 2018 at 10am.