Subcontractor South Gloucestershire Recycling is making last minute representations to South Gloucestershire council in a bid to avoid being removed by main contractor SITA.
The recycling operation collects and disposes of recyclables for SITA. Owned by Avon Friends of the Earth, South Gloucestershire Recycling shares senior management with Avon FoE company Resourcesaver, which operates the recycling service in neighbouring Bristol.
SITA is poised to take over the work directly, with the dozen employees affected moving to the waste management company under the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment regulations.
South Gloucestershire Recycling originally worked for United Waste Services, which was the council’s contractor. It did so on a rolling monthly contract and this arrangement continued when UWS was absorbed into SITA last year.
Contract
Resourcesaver’s manager Charlie McCaulder said: “We’ve been patient. We started negotiations with SITA, then all of a sudden they presented us with a contract on 23 December and said they wanted it signed by the end of the year.”
Mr McCaulder continued: “There were people in our organisation who needed to read it and be happy with it. That was not possible with the holiday season and there were issues that had to be sorted out. We then received a letter saying that we had failed to meet the deadline.”
He added that Resourcesaver was appealing to the council and was “very hopeful” that it would press SITA to reconsider, in particular because it believes the original UWS contract contained a commitment to work with the community sector.
A spokesman for South Gloucestershire council said: “We have heard nothing from Resourcesaver. If it wishes to make representations we would consider them as we would consider representations from anyone.”
Glitch
Jan Miller, SITA’s senior contract manager for South Gloucestershire, said: “Resourcesaver found it was not in a position to sign a contract in the timescale we need. It is nice to use a third party where possible to handle recycling, but there has been a glitch.”
She added that the service to the public was unaffected by the present uncertainty.
A source said that Resourcesaver had originally regarded the SITA deadline as “sabre rattling”, and that while the workforce regretted leaving the community sector, all were expected to opt to join SITA.
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