Agenda item

JOINT REPORT OF THE HEAD OF LEISURE & ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES AND HEAD OF FINANCE, PERFORMANCE & ASSET MANAGEMENT

 

To consider a report being submitted to Cabinet regarding the selection of options in respect of the Shared Service Waste and Street Cleansing Contract.

RESOLVED: That, apart from the implementation of a chargeable garden waste collection, the recommendation contained in the report entitled Shared Service for Waste and Street Cleansing – Selection of Options be supported.

 

RECOMMENDED TO CABNET:

 

(1)     That Cabinet be requested to give due weight to the feedback from the public consultation that 85 percent of residents disagreed or strongly disagreed with introducing a changeable garden waste service alongside weekly food waste collections;

 

(2)     That, if minded to charge for the collection of garden waste, every effort be made to communicate to the public the reasons for doing so.

 

REASON FOR DECISION: To enable the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to comment on the report entitled Shared Service for Waste and Street Cleansing – Selection of Options prior to consideration by Cabinet

The Part 2 report on this subject (Minute 57 refers) was considered prior to any decisions being made.

 

The Head of Leisure and Environmental Service presented the report entitled Shared Service for Waste and Street Cleansing – Selection of Options.

 

He advised that this report related to the dependent and independent options to be provided by the contractor awarded the core contract and drew attention to the following:

 

Paragraph 3.3

Set out that the contract could not be signed until all of the options had been determined and that the contractor would not commit to ordering assets such as ordering vehicles until the contract was signed.

 

It should be noted that timescales for mobilising of the contract were tight and therefore no further delays should occur.

 

Paragraph 5.3

A questionnaire had been circulated to local authorities across the Country that already charged for the collection of garden waste to inform officers on the potential impacts of the service to which they received 16 responses.

 

Paragraph 7.6

The first depended option was to consider whether to continue source separating paper or whether to change to source separating glass.

 

It should be noted that paper tonnages was in decline, but the differential for glass was significant.

 

The key issue regarding the collection of glass was that is was quite abrasive on mechanical equipment resulting in higher maintenance costs and therefore discussion would be held with the contractor in order to see whether glass or paper collection offered the best overall price

 

Paragraph 8.4

The public consultation had generated 8016 responses and residents had been positive about their willingness to source separate materials.

 

Independent Options

NHDC independent options for consideration were:

 

Kerbside textile collection – this was already undertaken and it was recommended that it continue

 

Kerbside battery collection – this would be a new service that was recommended.

 

Kerbside small WEEE collection – this was not recommended at this time, as it could result in a large amount of items being left on the kerbs. However this could be introduced at a later stage if required.

 

Charging for Green Waste

There was a risk of increased fly tipping as a result of this proposal, however data from the “nearest neighbour in relation to fly-tipping showed no noticeable increase following the introduction of charges.

 

Charging for garden waste would likely have some effect on household recycling centres, although discussions had been held with Hertfordshire County Council on these matters.

 

It should be noted that of over 280 local authorities in the Country 54 percent now charged for the collection of green waste.

 

Members referred to the consultation of residents in North Herts and noted that 85 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed with the introduction of chargeable garden waste.

 

They expressed concern that there were many valid reasons why certain residents should not be charged for this service including those who were less able to afford the charges or those who were less able to go to the waste and recycling centres and queried what support would be put in place.

 

There was also concern that the survey did not include an option stating “I am not prepared to pay for garden waste collection under any circumstances”, which may have skewed the data collected and queried whether this was a purely budget led policy.

 

The Head of Leisure and Environmental Services advised that the Financial Strategy demonstrated that the pressure on finances was significant and that this would result in Members having to make tough decisions about what services they wanted the Council to provide and how they wished to provide them.

 

Other authorities had introduced charging for the collection of garden waste and research had taken place regarding the impact of that.

 

The Service Manager – Waste and Recycling advised that the Council had employed consultants to produce and assess the questions included in the survey.

 

It was inevitable that residents would not want to pay for a service that they had previously received free of charge, but the survey was about exploring whether there was an appetite to pay for the service.

 

Members were concerned that the Council had asked people whether they wanted to pay and then appeared to take no notice of the response, which had made the perception of the Council worse and were also concerned about the impacts of the introduction of charges on other services within the Council.

 

The Service Manager – Waste and Recycling advised that the Council had a duty to consult regarding major service change.

 

The Head of Leisure and Environmental Services advised that they had undertaken research regarding nearest neighbour authorities and this had demonstrated that take up would likely be higher then the survey results suggested, with Three Rivers District Council reporting a 74 percent take up. He confirmed that the level of take up would have an effect on the Alternative Financial Model,

 

Members stated that confidence in the Council was currently low and that going ahead with charges, when such a large response had been received against the proposals would reduce that confidence further.

 

A Member referred to the reasons for recommendation and queried whether the Council should be more ambitious when setting targets regarding recycling.

 

Questions were also asked regarding whether any research had been undertaken on the possible effects of this policy on the eco system, in that people may choose to cover their garden with concrete or decking rather than pay for the collection of the garden waste

 

The Head of Leisure and Environmental Services advised that NHDC was consistently in the upper quartile regarding recycling and that as higher target are achieved, it became more difficult to increase the percentage collected.

 

The Service Manager – Waste and Recycling advised that she was unaware of any research undertaken regarding effects on the eco system.

 

Members asked whether introduction of chares would result in an increase in the amount of waste going to land fill.

 

The Head of Leisure and Environmental Services advised that there was no evidence of this from those Council’s that had already introduced charges.

 

The Service Manager – Waste and Recycling advised that, as part of their research they had contacted many local authorities to ask what they felt ere the positive and negative impacts of charging for this service were and the response had been that residents had taken up the service as it was the cheapest and most convenient was to dispose of garden waste.

 

She noted that, although residents may well put some garden waste in the bin, the amount would be limited due to the size of that bin.

 

In respect of consultation, Members commented that questions could have been phrased in a different way in order to set the financial context and that to go ahead with charging for garden waste collection despite the response from the consultation opened the Council up to criticism.

 

The Service Manager – Waste and Recycling advised that the Council would likely have been criticised if the question regarding whether residents wished to pay or not had not been included in the survey and that this question had encouraged people to complete the survey resulting in further information being gathered.

 

The Communications Manager reminded Members that the Council had a duty to consult and to listen, but may chose not to agree with the responses for various reasons.

 

Following consideration of the Part 2 report, Members debated that Cabinet should consider very carefully and give due weight to the negative responses received to the consultation regarding charging for garden waste collections.

 

They were also concerned that the public be kept fully informed and therefore Cabinet, if minded to if minded to charge for the collection of garden waste, be asked to make every effort to communicate to the public the reasons for doing so.

 

RESOLVED: That, apart from the implementation of a chargeable garden waste collection, the recommendation contained in the report entitled Shared Service for Waste and Street Cleansing – Selection of Options be supported.

 

RECOMMENDED TO CABNET:

 

(1)     That Cabinet be requested to give due weight to the feedback from the public consultation that 85 percent of residents disagreed or strongly disagreed with introducing a changeable garden waste service alongside weekly food waste collections;

 

(2)     That, if minded to charge for the collection of garden waste, every effort be made to communicate to the public the reasons for doing so.

 

REASON FOR DECISION: To enable the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to comment on the report entitled Shared Service for Waste and Street Cleansing – Selection of Options prior to consideration by Cabinet