Councils must raise their game, say inspectors

Rugby Borough Council and Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council were both awarded one star meaning fair along a scale ranging from zero (meaning poor) to three (meaning excellent).

Rochdale in Greater Manchester achieved a recycling rate of 16.2% for 2005/06 was told it had promising prospects for improvement while Rugby, which achieved 18.46%, was said to have uncertain prospects for improvement.

Rochdale

Rochdale failed to meet its 2003/04 and 2005/06 recycling targets and inspectors said “it was amongst the worst 25 per cent and was the worst of the Greater Manchester councils”.

Satisfaction among its users is at 64%, low compared with other Manchester councils and below its own target of 75%.

James Foster, Audit Commission senior manager, said: “Rochdale has made good progress in diverting waste from landfill by expanding recycling services, although the quality of facilities is variable. Action is being taken to address areas for improvement and continue the progress made in recent years.”

The inspectors said Rochdale had to make more of an effort to improve recycling rates including the council's own waste production.

Rugby

Rugby met its government recycling targets but inspectors said inspectors said its “performance remains below average with worst quartile performance for the collection of dry recyclables”.

Also, the amount of waste per head going to landfill increased by 5.5 per cent between 2003/04 and 2005/06 and performance in the first half of 2007 showed it is greater than in the same period of 2006.

Some of Rugby's problems lay in the delay in building its Materials Recovery Facility which would have allowed it to introduce alternate weekly collections.

It was due to be operating in January 2006 but is now unlikely to be operating before 2008.

Also, the amount of waste per head going to landfill increased by 5.5 per cent between 2003/04 and 2005/06 and performance in the first half of 2007 showed it is greater than in the same period of 2006.

Rugby's 33 recycling centres came under attack because they were not well maintained – containers were overflowing and broken glass was lying around.

And resident satisfaction with recycling facilities fell from 78 per cent in 2003/04 to 66 per cent in 2006/07.

Sandy McMillan, Audit Commission senior manager, said: “The Council knows what it needs to do to provide a better service. For the past two years it has had plans for a major change in the way it deals with waste, but hasn't yet been able to turn those plans into reality Rugby needs to waste less and recycle more.”

Recommendations include working with Warwickshire County Council and its districts to make improvements and ensuring all residents have fair and equal access to recycling services.

But its prospects for improvements were deemed uncertain because strategic partnership was “an early stage and has been slow to develop” and because no provision had been made in the budget to fund the MRF.