Issue - meetings

It was noted that the contract had been signed by all partners on 25 May 2017. This had been a little later than planned due to the review of the rural collections process. Elmbridge Borough Council had mobilised on 3 June 2017.

It was noted that there had been significant progress with ICT and the customer contact web forms. There had been a useful demonstration of the ICT on 11 May 2017 in Liverpool, where the Amey contact centre was located. The finalisation of the web forms was a priority, working closely with Amey and staying customer focussed. The target was to have the new system in place by September 2017. The Committee was advised that existing CRM systems were being used at Elmbridge for the time being.

The Committee was advised that there had been a few teething during the early stages of the mobilisation and officers were working with Amey to improve this. Additional collection crews have been brought in by Amey and staff on the ground were working very hard to adapt to the new rounds and ways of working.

Food waste is now collected in a separate vehicle, which creates more flexibility in the service, but is taking longer than anticipated to bed in. An additional catch up crew is dedicated to food waste collection and the service is improving every day.

There would be a meeting later this month to look at lessons learnt which will be used as guidance for the future mobilisations.  Woking Borough Council’s new service will go live in in September 2017.

The Director of Joint Waste Solutions advised the Committee that the focus was on enabling staff to get used to the new ways of working whilst providing catch up resource in the short term. He further advised that Amey’s Partnership Director was very experienced in managing waste and street cleansing services and was fully committed to delivering an excellent service.

Clarification was sought regarding why the food caddy vehicle could not follow the recycling vehicle on the rounds but it was confirmed that the vehicles travelled at different speeds.

It was noted that residents would receive information regarding the Woking Borough Council Mobilisation in early September 2017 and it was agreed that it would be important to show the changes to the existing service in bold and also language needed to be considered, particularly for the Urdu community.

The Chairman thanked the Director, the Contract Implementation Manager and officers for all of their work.

Resolved that the report be noted.