To consider the progress made in respect of the recommendations arising from the bulky waste audit.  

10.1           The report of the Head of Community Services, circulated at Pages No. 37-43, provided an update in relation to the recommendations arising from the trade waste audit.  Members were asked to consider the progress that had been made.

10.2           The Head of Community Services explained that, in addition to collecting furniture and bulky items from domestic properties, the bulky waste collection service also operated as a bin and caddy delivery service.  The audit of the bulky waste collection service had been carried out in 2016/17 and highlighted a number of areas of improvement, the main two being in relation to the cost of the service and waiting times.  A review of the charges had subsequently taken place and all standard charges had been increased from £20 to £22.  Residents in receipt of housing or council tax benefit were entitled to a 50% reduction so the charge for this had increased from £10 to £11.  Moving forward, the fees would be reviewed annually in accordance with the Fees and Charges Strategy approved by the Executive Committee in April 2017.  In terms of service delivery and lead times for collection and delivery, Members were informed that the service had been unable to meet the level of demand in June 2016 with the average waiting time rising to 40 days.  Additional collections had been provided to deal with the back log and changes had been made to the way the service operated which had reduced average bin delivery time to between one and two weeks, and bulky waste collections from seven weeks to less than four weeks; in some areas it was as little as two weeks.  Importantly, service lead times was a standing item on the Agenda for the Ubico and Customer Services team meeting to ensure that they were regularly monitored and, where a trend appeared to be leading to a backlog, the team could make changes to address this.  A new policy was currently being prepared with Ubico to work in advance to deliver bins when new developments came on line.  The Head of Community Services acknowledged that there was still work to do but significant progress had been made since the audit.

10.3           A Member was pleased to see the reduction in waiting times, particularly as there was often a correlation between bulky waste collection and fly-tipping and he indicated that he would welcome a piece of work on the relationship between the two.  The Head of Community Services confirmed that there was a known connection between bulky waste collection and fly-tipping but investigating that further would require significant resources and he felt that it would be beneficial to wait until the changes were fully embedded whilst giving an assurance that fly-tipping would be closely monitored.  The Member queried whether the Customer Services team asked people where they were storing their bulky items whilst awaiting collection as fly-tipping may be encouraged if customers left items outside their house on a public footpath.  The Head of Community Services explained that it was intended people would not put the items outside until the day of collection but this was not something which could be policed; if people did flout these requirements, the items would not be outside for long provided that waiting times were kept low.  A Member queried whether the Council promoted the donation of bulky waste items to charity, or for recycling, and the Head of Community Services felt this was an excellent suggestion and Customer Services could be provided with a list of charities for customers to contact.  Another Member went on to question the rationale behind the decision to increase standard charges from £20 to £22.  The Head of Finance and Asset Management advised that the charges had not been increased since April 2011; consideration had been given to costs and inflation over that period and a 10% cap was thought to be reasonable.  It would be necessary to conduct a more thorough exercise to understand the costs of delivering the service. 

10.4           A Member drew attention to Appendix A and raised concern that the implementation dates for the recommendations were mainly April 2017 but some actions were ongoing and she indicated that she would like to see more realistic deadlines.  The Head of Corporate Services explained that a number of the recommendations had already been implemented.  With regard to recommendation 1, he pointed out that, whilst the review of charges had been completed, the review of the whole service was yet to commence and the report had therefore been updated to show a target date of April 2018.  Recommendation 2, in respect of the development of a Data Retention Policy, and Recommendation 5, regarding the amendment of the authorised signatory list, had both been implemented and Recommendation 4, in relation to terms of reference for the service, would come forward in the autumn.  He accepted that a revised implementation date was needed for Recommendation 3 around the review of the customer records database.

10.5           It was

RESOLVED          That the progress made against the recommendations arising from the bulky waste audit be NOTED.