The services provider announced last night that it has been chosen to supply waste and recycling collections to an “innovative ” joint procurement between Mid Suffolk and Babergh district councils under an estimated 21-year, £80 million contract.
Another 21-year deal for waste management and street cleansing services in Mid Sussex, valued at around £65 million, is due to be signed in January.
Under the Mid Suffolk and Babergh arrangement, Serco will launch a combined waste and recycling service from April 2007, after which it will migrate operations to a shared depot facility in Great Blackenham.
The company plans to invest £6 million in new recycling vehicles, bring sites and information and communication technology (ICT) to help boost the district’s recycling rate – which is around 36% in both local authorities.
Mike Brown, chief executive of Serco Integrated Services, said: “We have some exciting plans for recycling development over the next 24 months. Our aim is to work together to improve awareness, recycling participation and customer satisfaction across the local community.”
Partnership
Paul Lewis, waste and environmental service manager at Mid Suffolk council, explained that the service procurement partnership with Babergh council was designed to attract a more competitive bid.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, he said: “We identified several years ago that a lot of local authorities were finding tenderers fussy about what they bid for, resulting in fewer bidders. Mid Suffolk and Babergh are both very rural districts and we were concerned that it would not be very competitive to tender individually.”
Mr Lewis added that, as Mid Suffolk and Babergh already shared the same materials recycling facility, alternate weekly recycling collections and a similar demographic in terms of population, it was just a logical step to join forces.
“We have some exciting plans for recycling development over the next 24 months.”
– Mike Brown, Serco
He said: “Procuring together has given us a bit more flexibility and economies of scale. We had 14 expressions of interest from the major players in the industry, including our current contractor Veolia, and shortlisted nine. If we had tendered alone we would have been lucky to see three or four.”
Robin Davies, marketing director at Serco, explained that the deal was beneficial all round.
He said: “It’s an exciting model for local government in general. The larger contract also means we can invest more in ICT, linking our service management software to the council’s contact centres to provide better customer service.”
Mid Sussex
In Mid Sussex, meanwhile, Serco plans to introduce an alternate weekly collection programme from August 1st 2007, after the council’s contract with SITA comes to an end in July.
This will see “landfill waste” collected one week and recycling the next, using new vehicles capable of handling both waste streams – which Serco hopes will raise the district’s recycling rates to “above-expectation.”
Currently, the council collects residual waste every week and collects a green box for newspaper and magazines one week and a blue box for card, cans, plastic bottles and aerosols the next.
Joy Dyson, waste reduction and education officer at Mid Sussex district council, said: “Our main hope is to make recycling easier and to increase our 25-27% recycling rate to 40% by the end of the third year. It’s going to be hard and we’re going to have lots of education work to do.”
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Mr Davies said: “Our experience in implementing effective recycling solutions combined with our marketing and communications skills will be key in the successful introduction of AWC whilst maintaining awareness and support for the council’s recycling agenda.”
He added: “The two contracts have come in good time for Christmas and are due to be signed in the next two weeks.”
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