Agenda item

To consider report 90/11 of the head of corporate strategy. 

The committee considered report 90/11 of the head of corporate strategy setting out the performance of Biffa Municipal Limited (Biffa) in providing the household waste collection, street cleansing, and ancillary services in the Vale of White Horse for the period 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2011.

The committee noted the points below:

Street and environmental cleanliness - litter and detritus

1.      About 800 inspections of street cleanliness were made throughout the district over the year. Officers and the contractor’s representatives inspected some sites together. Sites were selected at random from each type of street and were not reinspected. If a site fell below the expected level it would be visited a few weeks later, after cleaning, to check is the standard was now acceptable. Some roads had been inspected before being cleaned.

2.      Residents were surveyed via the council’s citizens’ panel and it was not possible to work out if the unsatisfied residents came from a few areas or more widely across the district.

3.      Standards of cleanliness had improved on taking over the contract but were now static.

4.      The failure to meet the targets did not reflect the standard of cleanliness. In the town centres this was generally good and had improved, and an increased number of roads were cleaned.

5.      Roads scheduled to be cleaned were cleaned roughly every eight weeks, allowing for variations to deal with high visibility or litter-prone areas.

6.      Un-cleared and overgrown drains were creating problems for street cleaning as the build up of debris in the drains increased the accumulation of litter and detritus. This would be mentioned to the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership for action.

7.      There was a balance needed between targets which were realistic and achievable and those which were unrealistic; and the scoring system needed to be fair and reasonable given that the district had a reasonable standard of cleanliness. Biffa suggested an independent inspection to set a benchmark level of cleanliness.

8.      Currently Biffa co-ordinated community litter picks but had no records of regular litter picking carried out by parish councils.

9.      Extra street sweeping was carried out in spring and autumn when blossom and leaves fell.

Councillors commented that it was better to keep the targets stretching rather than easily achievable to give the contractor something to strive for.

Waste collection and garden waste collection services

10. Refuse crews have clear instructions as to how to collect and replace wheelie bins. Crews worked to demanding targets and could be penalised for missed bins, misplaced bins, obstructing the footpath or driveways, and for leaving lids open.

11. The chips in each bin allow crews to know which bin belongs to which property, problems arise when missed collections are reported because a bin is being used at the wrong address.

12. Biffa was supplied with a list of garden waste bins which should not be collected and this should have been supplied to crews. Garden waste bins were not chipped or necessarily labelled and it could be difficult to tell which should be collected. When, as in spring, few bins were presented, crews were less able to differentiate. It was not cost-effective to supply a coloured sticker each year for a paid-for bin, and there were practical problems in collecting unpaid for bins.

13. The recycling rate for this review period was 69.3 percent and the council was aiming for 75 percent this year. However this was very high and while more recycling of more items could be encouraged there was a limit to any increase. An analysis of residual waste had shown that not much more could be recycled under the current scheme although further analysis is to be carried out.

14. Increasing information about recycling, additional bring banks, and increased garden waste collections could increase the overall recycling rate. Reducing food waste would reduce the amount of waste overall but may also reduce the recycling rate.

15. The rejection rate of material presented for recycling was about four per cent which is extremely low.

Call centre

16. Information had been collected about customer satisfaction with the call centre  but was not part of this review.

17. Call centre staff were responsible for logging and passing on job requests and had expected timescales for completion of requests; however they were not responsible for ensuring these were carried out.

The cabinet member reported that some areas were improving and action plans for improvements in other areas were in place. Parish councils would be informed after roads in their parish were cleaned. Better technology on Biffa’s vehicles would reduce problems.

Councillors commented that mangers could test the call centre staff to make sure they had the correct information in response to more irregular or unusual queries.

The committee:

·        welcomed proposals to raise the need to clean gullies and drains with the members of the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership;

·        recommended that Biffa’s contract manager find out which parish councils regularly litter pick and clean areas within their parishes and co-ordinate Biffa’s and the parishes’ cleaning schedules as far as possible;

·        recommended that the cabinet member press for improvements to litter and detritus removal, and dog mess collection standards; and

·        congratulated Biffa on their excellent waste and recycling collection services.

RESOLVED: To recommend that the Cabinet Member for Finance assess the overall performance of Biffa Municipal Limited in providing the household waste collection, street cleansing, and ancillary services in the Vale of White Horse for the period 1 January to 31 December 2011 as ‘good’.