Agenda item

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability submitted a report that provided an update regarding the mobilisation of waste, recycling and collection services from the start of the new contract in May 2025, primarily focusing on the roll out of the new waste and recycling services from August 2025.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability submitted a detailed verbal PowerPoint presentation that updated Members on the mobilisation of the Waste, Recycling and Street Cleansing Contract. He said that 97% of containers were delivered as of 4 August, and whilst this was an excellent result it had still left about 1600 households without the required containers.

Members were advised that all containers had now been delivered, with a caveat that this was as far as the council was aware.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability presented a series of slides about tonnages of collection of food waste and other types of waste. He presented details about the underlying performance of the collection crews. Members were also presented with data in respect of missed bins collections and were advised that there still improvements to make.

Councillor Buckmaster commented on whether there was a better project management template that could be used in the future for a project on this scale. The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability said that the customer service element could have better managed in East Herts.

Councillor Nicholls acknowledged the achievement of this project was and she was pleased to read about the decarbonisation of the vehicle fleet. She referred to problems for customers and residents trying to use online forms to report concerns and the consequent overloading of customer services as being a big area of frustration and criticism.

Councillor Nicholls asked whether the IT system incompatibilities and other issues to do with digital transformation could have been identified earlier and did any of those problems still remain. The Shared Service Manager (Waste) said that the webforms not being live did have a big impact on East Herts customer services. She said that officers were working with customer services and digital teams on that.

Members were advised that the reporting of missed bins could be done online and integrated straight into the waste management system. The Shared Service Manager (Waste) said that the impact on customer services had reduced significantly. She said that the roll out of the bin deliveries was adversely affected by the different systems being used to co-ordinate the deliveries.

Councillor Marlow commented on whether the council had asked questions of North Hertfordshire District Council about what was involved in a roll out on this scale. He made a number of points about the questions that should have been resolved at the outset of the mobilisation of the contract.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability explained that he believed that the Waste, Recycling and Street Cleansing Contract was provided by a very experienced team of officers that had jointly managed the waste collection regimes at North Herts and East Herts.

The Shared Service Manager (Waste) made a number of points in respect of the project management arrangements that were in place for the roll out of the contract. Councillor Carter said that it was very impressive that the project was moving towards achieving a huge reduction in food waste and increase in recycling.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability and the Shared Service Manager (Waste) answered a number of further questions about CRM, data corruption regarding letters, bin deliveries and the timescale of rolling out the contract during the summer. Members were advised that there was a backlog in requests for assisted or high frequency collections and officers were working through those requests.

The Shared Service Manager (Waste) responded to a question from Councillor Jacobs in respect of the residents of Folly Island in Hertford and a petition expressing concerns about the bin deliveries in that particular community. She also responded to a question about the rationalisation of litter bins outside town and village centres.

Councillor Carter proposed, and Councillor Cox seconded, a motion that Overview and Scrutiny Committee had reviewed and provided comments on the update on waste, recycling and street cleansing contract mobilisation.

After being put to the meeting and a vote taken, the motion was declared CARRIED.

RESOLVED – that that Overview and Scrutiny Committee had reviewed and provided comments on the update on waste, recycling and street cleansing contract mobilisation.