And, both authorities are also looking to work more collaboratively with Cheshire East council, which currently contracts out environmental services to its own arm’s-length company Ansa.
The net cost for waste collection, recycling and street cleansing services for Staffordshire Moorlands in 2014/15 stood at £3.3 million, while High Peak borough council faced slightly lower costs of £2.8 million.
Council chiefs met this week (16 February) to discuss the possibility for more joint working on waste, with High Peak and Staffordshire Moorlands already partnered to provide a majority of services.
However, efforts to join-up waste services have been limited by High Peak’s ongoing waste collection and recycling contract with Veolia, according to a report presented to the councillors.
Veolia
The arrangement, which began in 2008, sees Veolia carry out fortnightly collections of dry recyclables in the borough. At the time, the contract was expected to save the council around £114,000 per year (see letsrecycle.com story).
High Peak’s contract with Veolia is now due to expire in August 2017, which Staffordshire Moorlands has identified as a ‘prime opportunity’ to consider options for joining up the service.
To support this development, consultancy Grant Thornton has undertaken a review revealing four options available to the councils for future service delivery. These include:
- High Peaks procuring a new waste collection contract following expiry with Veolia;
- Performing the collections in-house;
- Expanding collaborative working, looking to collaborate with another council, and;
- Both High Peaks and Staffordshire Moorlands tendering the service to the private sector while retaining street scene services in-house.
Cheshire East
To expand on these options, the councils are looking to explore collaboration opportunities with Cheshire East, and issue a Prior Information Notice to OJEU gain insight on how the private sector would deliver the services.
The councils are also required to review collection methodologies. At present Staffordshire Moorlands collects residual waste from a 180-litre wheeled blue bin, recyclables in a 240-litre grey bin and mixed organic waste in a 240-litre brown bin.
High Peak in contrast collects refuse from a 240-litre bin, operates twin-stream collections for recyclables with a 240-litre brown bin and a green box for glass. Organic waste collections are identical, but with varying fees for additional containers.
The report concludes: “Due to current contract end dates, decision making in regards to the future service provision of the waste and recycling collection services and street cleansing services needs to be timely.”
Councils within the Staffordshire Waste Partnership – which includes High Peak and Staffordshire Moorlands – are already considering integrating collection and disposal services to bring them closer in line with other formal partnerships such as Somerset and Dorset. Proposals are due to be outlined in October (see letsrecycle.com story).
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