Framework designed to cut council waste costs

Councils may soon be able to reduce the £4 billion a year they spend on waste collection services under a framework agreement being developed by local authority support body Improvement and Efficiency and South East (iESE).

The organisation expects to advertise in the Official Journal of the European Union by March 2011 for companies to feature on the list of suppliers offered by the Waste Procurement Programme framework.

iESE claims that, by setting out these aspects of the contract, the framework will reduce the money councils in England spend on procuring and delivering waste collection services, while also allowing them to maintain service performance.

David Greenfield, who is leading the waste procurement programme for the iESE, explained: “The whole purpose of the framework is to give them the service they want in the most effective way.”

Explaining the process, he said: “The framework means we will procure the delivery of services on the behalf of the authorities, sorting payment mechanisms and profit mechanisms.

“There will then be a number of suppliers on the framework and councils can run a mini procurement with them.”

iESE is targeting councils whose collection contracts are due for renewal within the next four or five years, and in particular those with deals that are set to be re-tendered for 2012/13.

But, Mr Greenfield stressed that councils which had signed up to the waste procurement programme did have the option to opt out of the framework when it came to procuring their waste and recycling collection services.

He described the framework as “another piece of the procurement jigsaw” for local authorities looking to find cost savings, and noted that there were already a “huge number” of frameworks already running in sectors such as the construction industry.

OJEU notice

iESE had planned to issue a procurement notice on the OJEU this month, but Mr Greenfield said that, as a result of continuing discussions with councils and the Environmental Services Association, this was now likely to happen before March 2011.

He added: “We've very close to sitting down with the public and private sector in the next month to define exactly what will come out of it.”

As part of the framework, the iESE is also developing a Commercial Relationship Programme, which will focus on councils with existing long-term contracts, aiming to “identify efficiencies to reduce the costs to both the supplier and the council”.