Agenda item

To review Veolia’s performance under its contract for the waste, recycling collection service and street cleansing. Additionally to review the Council’s management of the contract.

( Report to Follow)

The Cabinet Member for Sustainable Croydon introduced the item by providing context and advised that the contract was entered into in 2018 for waste collection as well as street cleaning. Veolia collect 1.8million household waste collections per month, and 2703 miles of streets were cleansed monthly. Recycling rates had improved significantly over the years, this was attributed to implementing different ways to encourage residents to take ownership and recycle more.  A service improvement plan had been put into place following the Pandemic to address issues and improve on service delivery. This plan had been impacted by the National HGV shortage issue. Growth increase due increased households and increased waste remained a challenge.

The General Manager and the Resilience Contract Manager from Veolia outlined details in a Presentation

Following the presentation, Members had the opportunity to ask questions

During the consideration of the recommendations, the Committee discussed the following:

• Officers stated that prior to the National issues with HGV drivers, there has been improvements in collections performance in the last year despite challenges and the service had performed well.
• Reporting of missed collections were  usually completed online but the small number of residents that are unable to complete reporting online they are able to report by calling the contact centres to report.
• Useful breakdown on street cleansing per borough, similar information on bin collection  per borough and missed per ward would be useful
• Concerning reports regarding behaviour of crew by some residents and officers were clear that any behavioural issues that were reported were dealt with. There were cameras on vehicles to capture any issues. Members welcomed the information of on board cameras and felt this should be publicised. Officers were exploring ways to update the cameras to enable direct feed to the office or live feedback as this was currently not possible. There were factors to be considered such as costs, data protection and resources which would be part of upgrading of the systems.
• Officers clarified that there were many reasons that fed into the shortage of HGV drivers, in 2019 road haulage association published that there were approximately 60K shortage, this had now risen to approximately 100k. This was desperate and challenging times as agency providers did not have the staff available to provide in this current climate from a backdrop of an already struggling industry .Veolia had been exploring several ways to address the issues such as overhauling recruitment process, upskilling current staff through a bespoke programme to assist them in obtaining the appropriate licensing. A retention bonus had been provided and increase in recruitment package. Prices had to be increased for commercial partners to be able to fund the additional money that was going into recruitment and retention of staff.
• Croydon internal staff as well as some DWP staff were currently being trained in Croydon. This commenced as of June 2021 as were not able to train any staff in 2019.  Prior to 2019 there had been an apprentice training scheme in place but not on the current scale. There were current extensive packages for staff such as overtime, bonuses, pension package and training package.
•  At the time the fleet was Purchased in 2018, there wasn’t and electrical dustcart available. There are more reliable and environmentally friendly fleets coming onto the market but they are extremely expensive. The current fleet was Euro 6 compliant which was encouraging. Technology was changing quickly but there was a substantial capital outlay to change the entire fleet and it could only be changed every 8 years.
• Out of the four authorities on the SLWP, two were not currently showing as experiencing issues but there had been issues in all the Local Authorities at different stages.

Request for Information

1. Request for comparative data on collection rates with other boroughs
2. Request for comparative data on collection rates by wards

The Sub-Committee Concluded that:

1. Workforce planning should be an area of focus
2. Improvement needed on online communication
3. Clear labelling of bins in HMO’s and properties with communal areas

The Sub-Committee Recommended that:

4. Veolia  and the Council to work together on improvement to technology and interface connections
5. Veolia to conduct a survey of bin locations in the Borough
6. The Chair to write to the government to lobby for a similar approach to Iceland on use of CCT for flytips and environmental enforcement