Issue - meetings

The Committee considered a report setting out the proposed protocol to be followed in the event of another local authority expressing an interest in joining the waste partnership.

In approving a policy it was hoped that any local authority wishing to join the contract would be able to clearly see the expectations that would be placed on them by the Partnership and that the Partnership would be able to recoup any costs incurred as part of feasibility studies and exploratory discussions before a contract was entered into.  Any decisions on whether to go forward with a new partner would be dealt with on a case by case basis with consideration being given to the whole package that the joining partner would bring to the table.

It was acknowledged that whilst it would not be prudent to bring additional partners into the Partnership during the initial phases of the contract implementation process it was important that the Partnership should not to be so inflexible in its approach that it missed out on opportunities of working in partnership with local authorities whose current waste collection contracts ended before the implementation of the project across the current four partner areas had been completed; consequently any approaches should be considered on a case by case basis.

The Partnership would examine any learning in this area from other waste partnerships and advice would be sought from specialist legal and procurement experts before any decisions on whether additional partners were approved were taken.

The Committee agreed in principle to the development of a protocol.  It was agreed that the current proposed protocol needed to be refined by the Contract Partnership Board and that the subject would be revisited at a later meeting.