Agenda item

To scrutinise the performance of the Household Waste and Recycling Collection service and the issue of litter in the district.

Representatives from Veolia and DDC Waste Services will be in attendance.

This item was added at the request of Councillor C D Zosseder (household waste collection) and Councillor T A Bond (litter).

The Chairman welcomed David Fitzgerald (General Manager) and Gary Morison (Senior Contract Manager) of Veolia to the meeting.

Mr Fitzgerald apologised on behalf of Veolia to Members in respect of the disruption affecting the waste service over the last six weeks. He advised that he thought the service had been improving over the last week.

The representatives from Veolia gave a presentation to Members covering the following points:

Background

·         That the collection routes had been changed to enable more balanced rounds with an even workload for the crews

·         That the new systems allowed managers to have greater monitoring potential

·         That the streamlined rounds allowed for easy issue rectification (in the case of misses and vehicle breakdowns) and a better customer experience

·         The new Euro 6 vehicles were more environmentally friendly with electric bin lifts

·         The provision of electric vehicles for the Veolia management team and electric cage vehicles

·         The maintenance of the same alternate-weekly service for kerbside properties

Collection Methodology

·         That 17% of properties (7,990 kerbside properties) would not see a change as a result of the changes

·         That 14.5% of properties (6,815 kerbside properties) would only be affected by a change in collection day only

·         That 34.3% of properties (16,074 kerbside properties) would be affected by a change in collection week only

·         That 34.3% of properties (16,121 kerbside properties) would be affected by a day and week change

·         That 9,459 properties would wait more than three additional days between refuse collections

·         The new rounds would allow for ease of returning to deal with missed collections and the Thursday round would be heaviest as it was closest to the disposal point.

·         That the new rounds were similar to those at other authorities such as Tendring and Telford and Wrekin

New Collection Round Roll Out

·         That there had been close working between the Council and Veolia prior to the changes.

·         That fortnightly transition meetings had been held.

·         That the risks of each option were analysed and the input of experienced crews with local knowledge had been sought out. All crews were training about new routes, vehicles and devices.

·         The average number of properties collected per day was 1,305.

·         That it had not been possible to test different collection days prior to informing residents of the change and that the new vehicles were not available prior to the change anyway.

·         Veolia had 20 Euro 6 vehicles and 8 electric vehicles as part of the Dover fleet with smaller vehicles for rural and narrow access roads. There had been a small reduction in the number of vehicles under the new service.

·         The new food waste collection arrangements had dedicated vehicles for food waste to ensure greater efficiency and a higher quality of material.

·         The number of staff on the new service was the same as the previous service due to the additional rounds being operated. However, once the new service was established there would be a reduction in 5 drivers (22 drivers under the new service compared to 27 before) and 8 operatives (33 operatives under the new service compared to 41 before).

·         A letter had been delivered to residents by Veolia 4-5 weeks before the service changed explaining the changes and 1-3 weeks before the service change a new collection calendar had been sent out

Members raised the following points:

• Councillor P Walker advised that he had received in excess of 50 complaints from residents in his ward in respect of waste and recycling and had struggled to get hold of staff to resolve these matters. He also criticised the first leaflet and calendar sent out by Veolia as being ambiguous and poorly written and asked for assurances that the viewpoint of the end user would be considered in future.

In response officers accepted the points raised and acknowledged that the service had been overwhelmed for a time.

• Councillor M Bates advised that some residents had not had a collection for over six weeks yet when they checked the website it said that their waste had been collected. There were concerns raised over the potential for vermin to spread and the lack of resolution to complaints when raised.

In response officers advised that reporting via Veolia’s ECHO system had been subject to problems and Veolia acknowledged that training issues had been identified for resolution.

• Councillor T A Bond expressed concern that the Council was getting less waste vehicles for more cost as part of the new contract and that he could not understand how a new contract with the same contractor (Veolia) had gone so wrong. The issue of waste crews stopping for breaks on rounds was raised and he also recounted his own problems in using the system to report issues.

In response officers advised that Veolia would look into the issue of crew breaks during rounds. In respect of the contract price, Veolia advised that it had been expected that sufficient resources were available to provide the service it was apparent that this had not been the case and additional resources had been deployed. These additional resources would be kept in place until Veolia felt that they could efficiently manage the service.

Issues in respect of some of the rural waste rounds and narrow streets were also  highlighted by Veolia.

The Strategic Director (Operations and Commercial) advised Members that the team had been overwhelmed by the volume of calls and that Civica’s performance figures would also reflect this. He felt that some of the problems had been resolved but that there were still some systemic issues to resolve.

• Councillor S H Beer welcomed the presentation and suggested that the information should be made available to the residents. She raised concerns as to whether the Council had sufficient resources to resolve the problems.

In response officers advised that 2 extra members of staff had been employed to assist the waste services team. The importance of triaging calls to ensure that they were dealt with effectively was also emphasised.

Veolia advised that the improvements in the fleet and the new rounds would have a positive impact on CO2 emissions.

• Councillor H M Williams aske for performance data to be provided to demonstrate the improvements in performance that had been reported to the Committee.

Officers advised that they would investigate the data that they held to see what could be shared with Members.

• Councillor R S Walkden advised that the issues he had reported from residents had been resolved by the waste services team.

• Councillor M Rose advised that residents needed an apology and an explanation from Veolia for the disruption to their waste and recycling. He also expressed concern that Veolia had decided to implement new routes and a new computer system at the same time.

In response Veolia acknowledged that staggering the implementation of new routes and a new computer system in Folkestone and Hythe had resulted in less issues.

• Councillor C D Zosseder advised that residents needed to be contacted via all forms of media, including a letter as some did not have online access. She also asked for a dedicated way for councillors to raise their issues with the waste services team.

In response officers advised that they were looking into a dedicated contact route for Members to raise issues.

Members thanked Veolia and officers for attending the meeting.