Waste scrutiny review
Published
Thursday 16 January, 2025
Updated
Thursday 16 January, 2025
Swale Borough Council have reviewed the roll out of their waste contract with Suez Recycling and Recovery UK , which began in March 2024, and agreed recommendations for future working practices within the council.
A cross-party member working group carried out a scrutiny review on the contract following several months of disruption for many residents.
From the start of the contract and throughout the review period, council staff have been working on solutions with Suez, through a recovery plan.
These solutions have seen the majority of Swale’s collections return to normal service.
The review worked to identify the root causes of the problems with the start of the new waste contract and identify what lessons can be learnt.
The group carried out a range of workshops and interviews with staff from both the council and Suez, and reviewed feedback from more than 2,000 responses to the public survey.
The data used for monitoring the contract was also examined, as well as the process used to create the bin collection rounds.
This work led to 23 recommendations from the group, which were discussed and agreed by the Environment and Climate Change Committee at a meeting last night, Wednesday 15 January.
The recommendations cover:
- the levels of training
- how the contract is monitored, including CCTV
- staff resourcing, for the council and Suez
- data availability and reliability
- the impact of new developments on the waste service
- closer working with vulnerable properties
- continuous scrutiny throughout the process
- internal and external communication
The council will continue working with Suez to bring about the additional benefits of the new contract.
Cllr Rich Lehmann, chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, who chaired the review, said:
“The start of the new waste and street cleansing contract with Suez Recycling and Recovery UK saw a significant period of disruption to the service for a large number of local residents.
“Whilst the changes being introduced at the start of the contract meant that some disruption was expected, the scale and duration of the disruption was far greater than we had anticipated.
“With any project of this scale, it is important to look at what went wrong, what went well, and to make sure lessons are learned to help inform future changes.
“In this case we believed it was important that this was done thoroughly in the form of a scrutiny review.
“Councillors from all political groups on the council carried out workshops, interviewed council officers and Suez representatives, consulted with the public, and have gone through vast amounts of documentation and data to examine the different aspects of the project.
“This report presents our findings and sets out the conclusions reached, and recommendations made. We hope this provides an honest explanation of the causes of the disruption for residents who have patiently endured this period of poor service.
“I’d like to thank everyone who has worked incredibly hard to get the service up to an acceptable level of performance, the public for their patience and feedback, and my fellow councillors who helped compile this report.
“Everyone wants the waste service to succeed, and I hope our thorough report will help to ensure that any future changes deliver the service local people deserve.”
You can read the review’s conclusions and recommendations here.
