Waste partnerships agree joint management

Under the arrangement, Mr Read will be contracted for two days a week to the GJWP as head of service from April 1 2013. The deal, which SWP believes to be the first of its kind, will initially last for one year and Mr Read will remain fully employed by the Somerset Waste Partnership which will be reimbursed for his services.

Mr Read will be responsible for staff and services at the GJWP, which from April 1 will take over governance of the waste functions of Cheltenham borough council, Cotswold district council and Forest of Dean district council as well as the disposal and recycling centre management functions of Gloucestershire county council.

The GJWP, which was first mooted in 2011, is intended to save the councils money through joint procurement and marketing opportunities. It is hoped the shared management arrangement will allow SWP and GJWP to share best practice.

Mr Read has a long history of working in waste partnerships having joined the Somerset Waste Partnership prior to its inception in 2007. Before this, he held the position of executive officer for Hampshires waste partnership Project Integra. He also currently works on Defras advisory committee on packaging and was formally a member of the Joint Waste Authority and Advanced Partnership Working Board which contributed to the development of the GJWP.

Discussing his new role, Mr Read told letsrecycle.com this morning (March 13): I will have responsibility for managing the staff and services that are involved in providing services to the public for the four local authorities involved in the Partnership.

The staff that are currently working for the three district councils will transfer to the administering authority Gloucestershire county council to form one integrated GJWP team, which Mr Read will be responsible for.

Service

Commenting on the service in Gloucestershire, Mr Read said: Maintaining a high level of service and increasing recycling rates are very important things. There wont be any major changes for a while and certainly none that the public will see because we are not at the point of procuring any new services. The point is to get those local authorities to a place where they can look at jointly contracting services in the coming years.

He added he was taking up the role to help the Partnership get bedded in and getting the elected members used to the new governance arrangements.

Discussing Somerset, Mr Read added: Things wont change in Somerset. I have a very good team who are well established and have been looking internally at how we organise ourselves over the last few months and implementing an internal restructure which will assist me to give more of my time to Gloucestershire without impacting the services in Somerset.

The Somerset Waste Partnership manages waste and recycling services for all six local authorities in Somerset. They are: Mendip district council, Sedgemoor district council, South Somerset district council, Taunton Deane borough council, West Somerset district council and Somerset county council.

Delighted

GJWP chairman, Cllr Martin Quaile, added: We are delighted that, following our approach, SWB has agreed to contract Steve to work with us in this way. Steve brings a wealth of experience of joined-up working across boundaries and between tiers that will be invaluable as we move to this way of working. Steve has already been working with us over the past few months to develop a business plan to cover our first year of operation and we will adopt this at the first formal meeting in July.

The GJWPs role will exclude the county councils residual waste treatment project, which is already well advanced (see letsrecycle.com story). It is hoped that Tewkesbury borough council will join the partnership in the near future with Gloucester city council and Stroud district council invited to join as well however they are both tied into long-term contractual arrangements.