Agenda item

To consider the update on the waste collections and grounds maintenance services provided by Ubico. 

84.1           Attention was drawn to the report of the Head of Community Services, circulated at Pages No. 14-20, which provided Members with an update on the waste collection and grounds maintenance services provided by Ubico and the work underway to review street cleansing services.  Members were asked to consider the update.

84.2           The Head of Community Services explained that the Committee had received a number of reports from the Council and the Joint Waste Team throughout the year and, at its meeting in May 2017, Members had specifically requested this interim update given that the next annual report was not due until July 2018.  He reminded Members that the Council had completed its fleet procurement in April 2017 and significant round changes had also been introduced at that time impacting on 60% of the borough.  Any changes to waste collections were expected to cause a degree of disruption in the following month or two but, in this case, it had continued well past that period - there had been an increase in missed bins including a number of assisted collections to the elderly and vulnerable, public complaints had risen and there had been issues with stock control with Ubico running out of bins on several occasions.  The table at Page No. 16, Paragraph 3.4, showed the number of missed bins for the year to date broken down by month; it was noted that over 1,000 bins had been missed in April 2017 and that was simply unacceptable.  As the amount of missed bins remained at a high level, a number of meetings had been held with the new Managing Director of Ubico when he took up the post in May 2017 and this was something he had prioritised very quickly.  As a result, an improvement plan was agreed with Ubico with the aim of reducing the number of missed collections to below 100 per week by the end of August 2017 with a 50% reduction on the quarter 1 figures by the end of October 2017; this equated to a 0.09% missed collection rate, well below the 1% target.  The plan also intended to improve communications between the Council and Ubico, which he was pleased to report had happened, as well as developing better reporting systems and ensuring that the stock of bins was monitored and maintained.  It was noted that the number of missed bins had increased in December 2017 and January 2018 due to the inclement weather; this was to be expected and Ubico had kept the Council fully informed of what was being done to address any issues so that this could be clearly communicated to residents and there had been a significant improvement in that area.  In addition to the close monitoring of missed bins, a “red list” had been introduced by Ubico for properties where bins were missed on more than one occasion and therefore required additional attention; there were currently less than 10 properties on the red list.  Regular reports were provided to the Environmental Services Project Board, which included the Head of Community Services and the Lead Member for Clean and Green Environment.  The standard of waste collections continued to be monitored on a weekly basis to ensure that the Council and Ubico were working together to provide the best possible service for residents.

84.3           In terms of the garden waste service, Members were advised that a new garden waste club had recently been launched.  Members of the club paid an annual subscription fee and there was now a single annual renewal date for all customers. Once they had paid the fee, customers were sent an adhesive sticker to place on their brown bins making it easier for crews to identify bins for collection.  There was potential to expand this service and the idea of introducing rewards for recommending a friend was currently being considered as an incentive.

84.4           The Head of Community Services went on to advise that, unfortunately, grounds maintenance had not been as successful and the summer period had been particularly difficult for a number of reasons including the loss of the Council’s client monitoring officer and a key member of staff leaving Ubico.  The Council’s Property team had played a significant part in getting the service back on track and had put in place a new task management software system which allowed tasks to be logged and managed.  Furthermore, new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) had been introduced and Officers were now looking at entering into a service level agreement for tasks to be categorised as urgent, high, medium or low.  One of the issues that had been identified was the lack of investment in equipment but that had now been addressed.  A further piece of work was planned for spring/summer and would involve looking at grounds maintenance across the borough to better coordinate with partners for more effective use of resources; this had been piloted in Bishop’s Cleeve.  It was noted that this would not necessarily result in financial savings and was more about improvements in service and efficiency; its success hinged on the various partners working together.  A review of street furniture was also planned as some things had been put in place historically which had been logical at the time but which now created difficulties in terms of maintenance e.g. railings in a park which meant that the area needed both a lawnmower and a strimmer.

84.5           In terms of street cleansing, Members were informed that a review of the service was being undertaken by the Joint Waste Team to analyse the type of requests received by the Council and to establish if there were better ways of working.  The Head of Community Services indicated that new guidelines had been introduced in 2017 which restricted what could be done without a road or lane closure.  This was very problematic and would be addressed by the review which would also include an assessment of street litter bins - these had tended to be installed on an ad-hoc basis and their number had increased over the years.   Financial performance had improved significantly over the past year, particularly around budget setting; in the past a percentage would simply have been added to the previous year’s figures but this year it had been assessed line by line so it should be much more meaningful.

84.6           During the debate which ensued, a Member questioned what had been done to improve communications between the Council and Ubico.  In response, the Head of Community Services explained that, previously emails had been sent back and forth between the teams and ultimately he and the Managing Director of Ubico had needed to intervene to get issues resolved.  A very clear message had been sent out that Customer Services needed to log all requests through the system to ensure that Ubico got the job done more quickly.  An agreement had also been reached around notification of missed bins, for example, if a whole street had been missed the Council would know about it at the earliest opportunity, and would know the reason and the remedy, so the public could be kept informed – Ubico had made a commitment to ensure action was taken when they said it would be.  Over the winter period the communication of key messages to Councillors and members of the public had been very good and was based on information from Ubico via the Council’s communication channels.  The Member queried what timescales were expected from the service level agreement and was advised that missed bins were usually collected within five days; the Council’s Waste Policy clearly set out how the service would operate.  A Member noted that KPIs were due to be reviewed across all services and she questioned if that had taken place.  The Head of Community Services confirmed that this had been done through the Joint Waste Team and a new suite of KPIs would be in place as of April 2018 which would be the same across the partnership, with slight variations for the different services.  These would be reported back to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

84.7           A Member raised concern that different staff were often used on waste collection rounds and he suggested that lack of consistency could result in more missed bin collections.  He recognised that two important members of staff had been lost in relation to grounds maintenance but he felt that action should have been taken to replace them at a much earlier stage to avoid the resultant knowledge gap.  He pointed out that there were occasions when bins could not be accessed if an area was overgrown and he questioned why this was not reported to the grounds maintenance team given that all the works were carried out by Ubico.  He considered this to be a simple communication issue.  The Managing Director of Ubico provided assurance that every effort was made to keep the three man crews consistent in order to build knowledge; however, this could be difficult to maintain and agency drivers often left at short notice.  Notwithstanding this, attempts were always made to pair new staff with those who already knew the route.  Some missed bins were inevitable but it was the responsibility of Ubico to keep that number as low as possible.  In terms of the overall figures, the number of missed bins was reducing back down to the level that had been seen prior to the bad weather i.e. 50-60 missed bins per week which was a better than 50% reduction.  Ubico had proven that could be achieved so it should be the benchmark as far as he was concerned.  He provided assurance that Tewkesbury Borough Council was not alone in its experience with grounds maintenance.   By its very nature, it tended to be based on the expertise of individual members of staff who built up knowledge about areas which required more frequent cutting etc. and this caused difficulties when they left.  Unfortunately, there was not much built-in resilience if someone left and consideration needed to be given as to how this could be overcome.  He provided assurance that he would be discussing this with the Head of Community Services at strategic level.  The Member had made a good point about general communication and he indicated that he would take this away to find out what happened.  He pointed out that the partnership agreement was flexible in terms of where the Council could allocate resources and Ubico could recommend changes if things could be done more efficiently.  The Member went on to point out that he was aware of an issue with a broken mower at the start of the 2017 growing season which had meant that several cuts had been missed.  In his view, it was unacceptable to have let the grass grow so high and it was essential that equipment was available when it was required.  The Managing Director of Ubico advised that there were maintenance schedules in place to ensure that plant and equipment was suitably looked after but he undertook to look into this particular issue following the meeting.  One general problem was that equipment could be difficult to maintain as it got older and this could result in breaks in service.  As a company, Ubico was working with all partners to ensure that clear fleet replacement programmes were in place which covered all plant and equipment.  He recognised that grass not being cut was a potential reputational issue in the same way as bins not being emptied.  The Member questioned whether all equipment was covered in the KPI around maintenance and was informed that it currently focused only on the vehicle fleet but the Head of Community Services undertook to discuss with the Joint Waste Team whether the KPI could be expanded.

84.8           A Member noted that a review of street cleansing was being undertaken.  He expressed the view that Tewkesbury Borough Council residents were not currently receiving the same level of service they had in the past and he could not understand why this was the case given that there had been no changes to staffing.  The Managing Director assured Members that, whilst there had been no change to the level of resources, Ubico was doing more than it had done previously for the same resources, for example, it was emptying more bins as and when new developments were built in the borough.  The current view taken by Ubico was that changes could be made to absorb these additional collections, e.g. by changing the frequency they were emptied, looking at overall resourcing levels etc. but, with a clear performance agreement in place, this could be monitored in order to clamp down if standards started to slip.  The Head of Community Services advised that the introduction of a Public Space Protection Order for dog fouling was due to be considered by the Council in April; if adopted, one of the key messages for the public would be that this type of waste could be disposed of in normal waste bins which would eliminate the need for dog waste bins which tended to be side by side with normal bins.  He went on to explain that the Council had two street sweepers in its vehicle fleet but, unfortunately, due to the driver crisis, there was currently no driver for the larger vehicle which was used for the main roads.  Ubico had been fiercely trying to recruit but it was a very technical machine and it was proving difficult to find someone with the right qualifications.  To offer some perspective, he indicated that the vehicle could do the work of 10 men if used efficiently.  The Managing Director of Ubico indicated that there had been a strategic overview of driver recruitment which continued to be a national challenge.  One issue which had been identified was the tone of job advertisements and the need to use language which promoted some of the key benefits of the role e.g. good work-life balance rather than factors which may discourage people from applying e.g. working in all weather conditions.  Another improvement was the introduction of finders’ fees.  It was important for Ubico to be more creative with recruitment as a company and this was now starting to pay dividends.  A Member queried what the turnover rate was for drivers and why retention was difficult.  The Managing Director of Ubico undertook to provide the turnover rate to Members following the meeting.  He advised that market dynamics was part of the problem – the need to use agency drivers was a particular issue as they tended to leave at short notice if they were offered another job with a higher wage and newer drivers did not have the same loyalty to the company.  This was all being taken into consideration in the review of recruitment.

84.9           A Member questioned why bins were missed and whether there was any correlation in terms of location i.e. rural or urban.  The Managing Director of Ubico indicated that there was no simple answer - bins could be missed for a whole host of reasons.  He pointed out that another authority had recently introduced a new back office system and had seen the number of missed bin collections reduce from approximately 5,500 per year to 2,500 per year – the new system involved a button being installed into every cab which was pressed upon the non-presentation of a bin and this generated an immediate response for the Customer Services agent; this meant that if someone challenged a non-presentation, Customer Services could ask the customer for permission to access the CCTV in the cab which would send an image of the front of the property to confirm that the bin had not been presented.  He stressed that, whilst Ubico did challenge people who reported missed bins when it was believed they had not been presented for collection, this could not be evidenced in the same way.  Conversations had taken place with shareholders about the possibility of introducing similar technology and the associated savings in terms of time and fuel; however, it would require considerable investment and Tewkesbury Borough Council already had an advanced back office system in terms of reporting so it would be a significant change.  He had no doubt this was an effective model for that particular Council but was not suggesting it should be replicated within Gloucestershire.  In terms of the reasons for errors, it was common to miss bins in rural areas like Tewkesbury Borough as properties could be spread out – drivers may stop at the point they believed the road to end when it actually continued around the corner.  In addition, he pointed out that bin stores were increasingly common in new developments and it was important to work with the Planning department to ensure these were as visible as possible and that they could be accessed by collection crews.  Another common reason for missed collections was that a separate smaller vehicle was used to collect food waste - the food waste caddies could easily be missed if they were hidden behind a gatepost or another bin, particularly given that the presentation rate for food waste was around 50%.  Encouraging the community to take ownership in order to keep the error rate as low as possible was part of the work Ubico had been doing around launching its new values and behaviours.  A continuing issue had been identified within the Tewkesbury Borough crews where five or six bins had been missed because each crew had thought another was collecting them; this was unacceptable and was something which needed to be clamped down on.  This was a cultural change which required continued enforcement over a period of time, not an overnight fix.

84.10         A Member indicated that he had been very impressed with the improvement plan when the Committee had received the last report, particularly the fact that it had been achieved by October; however, since that time the figures for missed bin collections had been creeping up – even when discounting the December and January figures which had been impacted by bad weather – and yet the report stated that the standard of waste collections continued to be monitored and improved.  He asked for more detail about the monitoring that was undertaken.  In terms of the KPIs, he raised concern that the target for missed bin collections was 1% and yet the improvement plan included a figure equivalent to 0.1% so he questioned why this was not the target for the KPI.  In response, the Head of Community Services advised that missed bins were monitored on a weekly basis; he received an email every Friday, as did the Managing Director of Ubico and the Joint Waste Team.  It was noted that conversations would have taken place prior to the email being sent out as to whether they were genuine missed bins so the figures were accurate.  The introduction of the red list had been very useful in terms of monitoring – as these were bins that had been repeatedly missed, it was accepted that there had been a service failure in these instances and that action needed to be taken.  With regards to the KPI, 1% was the figure set out in the contract and represented between 300 and 400 missed collections per week; however, Ubico had demonstrated that it could reduce the number of missed bin collections to less than 100 per week and this was the benchmark.  The Member pointed out that a missed bin collection rate of 0.1% was being regularly achieved and he was of the view that the KPI needed to be challenging and should be amended to reflect that.  The Chief Executive indicated that changing the KPI to 0.1% or less would be reported to the partnership board as feedback from the Committee.

84.11         A Member raised concern that there was nothing in the report about maintenance of the new vehicle fleet and he sought assurance that equipment was checked regularly.  The Head of Community Services felt that was a good question given the value of the equipment and he confirmed that the fleet, and fleet management, were included within the new KPIs.  He advised that Ubico was required to hold an operator’s licence and a regular audit was undertaken by the Traffic Commissioners to ensure that vehicles were properly maintained.  The Internal Audit team would also shortly be carrying out its own audit, the results of which would be reported to the Audit Committee.  A Member queried whether the vehicles used for street cleansing were different from the others in the fleet and if these were the same vehicles for which it was difficult to get drivers.  The Head of Community Services clarified that the whole vehicle fleet had been replaced – both waste collection vehicles and street cleansing vehicles – and it was the large mechanical sweeper which did not currently have a driver.  The Managing Director of Ubico confirmed that the fleet was performing well and operators were happy with the kit they were using.  He indicated that Traffic Commissioner checks were becoming increasingly stringent; it was also necessary to comply with Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment (LOLER) Regulations which were very labour intensive and rigorous.  He welcomed the internal audit which would help to ensure that Members were happy with the arrangements in place.

84.12         A Member indicated that he had previously been unable to report an incident of green waste being left in a passing place online as a postcode had been required; as it was located in a lane, he did not have that information.  He also pointed out that many of the waste collection calendars that been hooked onto bins in Winchcombe had been blown away in the very windy weather conditions and he suggested that they could have been delivered at a more appropriate time.  The Head of Corporate Services advised that a lot of work had been done around online forms and he clarified that, whilst there was a requirement to include a location, this did not have to be a postcode.  The Managing Director of Ubico apologised for the issue with the distribution of the collection calendars.  He recognised that a common sense approach should have been taken and undertook to speak to the supervisor for that round.  The Member also noted that Ubico was a teckal company and shareholders could make profit up to a certain level of turnover; however, this was not referenced in the financial performance section of the report.  In terms of Ubico’s growth as a company, the Managing Director of Ubico explained that the first phase had been about consolidation rather than aggressive trading.  Turnover had now reached £30M which gave £6M to trade with third parties and distribute to shareholders.  Consideration was currently being given to the business plan for the forthcoming year and proposals to deliver more savings, for example, the company now owned 450 vehicles in total so there was some potential work around reducing the cost of hire vehicles which were used sporadically, either by keeping a few spare vehicles which Ubico could deploy itself or hiring them out to others. 

84.13         The Chair sought assurance that the Committee would have sight of the KPIs and the Head of Community Services advised that they had not been formally signed off when the report had been written but he confirmed that it was absolutely the intention to bring the KPIs to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and provide regular updates as part of the performance management report.  It was subsequently

RESOLVED          That the Ubico Update be NOTED.