In a report to the council's strategy committee last week, which was also discussed at an environment committee meeting last night, Ms Simons outlined 37 recommendations to make sure that last year's recycling fiasco never happened again. Problems included contaminated recyclables, over-spending and an over-estimation of the council’s recycling rate.
The chief executive announced in September 2001 that she would “leave no stone unturned” when investigating what had gone wrong when the council implemented its dual-wheeled bin scheme and reduced its refuse collection to a fortnightly service. All the recommendations were agreed by the strategy committee.
Ms Simons said: “I have investigated the problems and made a substantial number of recommendations to prevent similar problems occurring again.” But, details of any actions to be taken against council staff are being kept secret with personnel matters raised in confidential annexes to her report.
The recycling crisis arose when a dual wheeled bin scheme was introduced following pilot schemes in 1997/98. These were not fully evaluated and during 1998/99 the scheme was extended “on the basis of inaccurate and incomplete information about cost and performance”.
Complaints
In spring 2000, further extension of the scheme was suspended because a large number of residents complained about the service and a review was carried out. But despite this, the review of the scheme was not submitted to the Environment & Leisure Performance Committee until November 2000 and even then no mention was made of the level of contamination at the materials recycling facility (MRF).
The chief executive's report said that officers were receiving regular information about contamination levels but failed to recognise its significance, nor to build it into performance review systems. In December 2000, the Strategy Committee decided to continue the extension of the dual wheeled bin scheme. Once the scheme was fully implemented borough-wide, costs and contamination levels escalated but this information was not reported to councillors until September 2001.
The chief executive's report concluded: “There were serious deficiencies in the scheme’s monitoring, evaluation and management. Officers did not provide accurate and relevant information for members to make proper informed decisions. Consequently the implementation of the wheeled bin scheme was taken on the basis of information which was inaccurate and incomplete.”
In response to the crisis and the high contamination levels, the council introduced a weekly collection of non-recyclable household waste across the borough in November 2001. Ms Simons said that the scheme is “operating smoothly” and the borough is monitoring refuse rounds more closely. To reduce contamination at the MRF, contaminated recycling bins are “stickered” to explain to residents why they have not been collected. The council said that new scheme has reduced contamination levels by 40% between August and December 2001.
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