To receive a presentation from Amey on the current status of the Garden Waste Collection Service and plans for a full resumption of the service.
Minutes:
The Committee received a presentation providing an update on the status of the Garden Waste Collection Service across the joint contract area.
It was reported that between December 2021 and February 2022 there had been a net increase of six drivers employed leaving a total of eleven driver vacancies across the joint contract area. The introduction of a market supplement to improve the salaries offered to drivers had resulted in a significant increase in interest from those seeking work; ten applications had been received in the two weeks after the announcement of the market supplement and 49 applications had been received in the first two months of 2022. Of the 23 applications received by Amey since the end of January 2022 five had been successful and remained working for Amey, six were currently working notice periods with other organisations and two were working their way through Amey’s induction process. This increase in the number of drivers meant that it would be possible to establish garden waste collections on a four weekly basis by the end of April 2022 ahead of the timeline set out in the agreed service recovery plan.
Notwithstanding this increase in the number of applications it had been found that many of those applying had lower than expected levels of experience and many drivers were turning down the opportunity to work for Amey citing the inherently transient nature of the market supplement which could be removed after a year leaving them on a lower basic rate than could be earned through an agency. In addition, with the recovery of the travel industry, airports were offering premium rates to drivers seeking work increasing competition for drivers. It was confirmed that the salary uplift had been initially agreed as being for one year with the need to continue it being reviewed on a quarterly basis.
The Committee was informed that eight candidates had been accepted onto Amey’s Driver Apprentice Programme. Over the course of the nine month programme, apprentices had up to five opportunities to pass the theory test and four opportunities to pass the practical tests. If an apprentice failed to successfully complete the course then, if they had previously been employed as loaders, they returned to a loader position. External applicants were employed on a nine month probationary period and this was not extended if they were unsuccessful. It was reported that the length of time that it was taking to obtain provisional licences from the DVLA was impacting on apprentices’ ability to start training with some licences being returned in days whilst other were taking weeks to be returned for no apparent reason.
It was clarified that whilst the garden waste service had historically operated with driver vacancies, these had generally been short term vacancies and it had been possible to engage agency staff to cover these periods. Increasingly agencies were reporting that staff were only looking for work on a short term basis between longer jobs and consequently they did not have as large a pool of staff that could be utilised, consequently vacancies were being unfilled for more extended periods of time.
Exit interviews were conducted with drivers leaving Amey’s employment and the reasons given varied. Some stated that they considered that the job wasn’t for them or they didn’t enjoy driving a rear steer vehicle while others had found the induction process to be too intensive.
The Committee acknowledged the work that was taking place in an effort to restore the Garden Waste Collection Service and stressed that the service should be restored in its entirety as soon as possible and that care should be taken to ensure that the service that had been restored to date did not deteriorate again.