A review of the service was commissioned by the council in January, following concerns over the operation of the new collection regime, which is being rolled out jointly across all of the boroughs within Dorset, apart from Bournemouth.
Problems included delays in the provision of bins to around 50,000 households in Weymouth & Portland and also parts of West Dorset. County-wide, problems encountered in the roll-out of the service led to a £2.8 million overspend in the Waste Partnership’s budget throughout 2014/15.
In April, Weymouth & Portland had said it would consider leaving the Partnership as a result of the problems, a threat which has not been carried through by the council (see letsrecycle.com story).
In a report, seen by councillors at a meeting last week, Weymouth council stated: “In respect of issues that had been experienced during the roll out and early days of the new service, it was noted that action had been taken by the DWP to address these.
“The scrutiny review had highlighted a numbers of lessons that could be learnt from the roll out in the borough and these had been included within the report with the recommendation that they be passed to the DWP to inform their work for the next tranche roll out of the new recycling service in Bridport and surrounding areas.”
Concerns
Commenting following last week’s meeting, councillor Ian Bruce, chairman of the borough council’s Management Committee, acknowledged that Weymouth & Portland still harbours concerns over the running of the service, noting that there is ‘still work to be done’.
He added: “The partnership must put the needs of our residents first. Our officers will continue to hold the partnership to account and I hope the issue of the waste partnership disappears from our agendas soon as that would show it was working well.”
Last month, the Dorset Partnership reported on its progress to bring its spending within budget. Councillors were warned that a potential £900,000 overspend for 2015/16 could arise, but interim director Nigel Mattravers told letsrecycle.com that a major budget shortfall could still be avoided.
The interim director added that ‘around 80%’ of the action plan to improve the Partnership’s performance had now been completed, with work to optimise collection routes still to be carried out.
Mr Mattravers is leading the Partnership due to the ongoing suspension of the director Steve Burdis.
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