Members received the report of the Executive Director which updated the Committee on the performance over the first 12 months of the Joint Waste Contract within the Rother District Council area.

The contract with Biffa commenced on the 29 June 2019 and replaced the previous contract which Rother joined in April 2014.  The outcome of the tendering process for the new contract resulted in an increased cost to the Council for the delivery of waste collection services, the outturn in 2019/20 being £4.6 million compared to an outturn of £3.3million in 2018/19 under the previous contract. The budget for 2020/21 was £4.1m.

In contrast to the previous contractor, Biffa were a waste collection specialist and the Council had benefitted from this specialist expertise when working to improve the performance of the service.

Members were provided with a table showing a summary of the key areas of performance between the first 12 months of the Biffa contract (July 2019 – June 2020) and that of the previous contract (July 2018 to June 2019) for comparison.  Members were pleased to note the significant improvement in missed bin performance across all waste types (calculated as a proportion of 100,000 collections).  This had resulted in a significant reduction in complaints over the first year of operating the contract which in turn had reduced demand on the Council Customer Services and Waste teams, an unquantified cost under the previous contract and had delivered an efficiency saving to the Council.

Council managers and officers met twice weekly with the local Biffa operations manager and supervisors to discuss performance and wider operational challenges.  From the end of the “honeymoon” period (September 2019 to end February 2020), contract performance was within acceptable levels.

COVID-19 had a significant impact in Biffa’s staffing levels and the availability of experienced drivers that knew the collection rounds intimately. The situation led to the suspension of garden waste services for April 2020 which focussed resources on the remaining waste streams and improved performance.

Since May 2020, the staffing challenges at Biffa had been compounded by the need to train a number of new drivers within the Rother team. The reliance on agency drivers and those new to the rounds had led to a very poor missed bin performance latterly; however, this had begun to improve during July 2020 as the new Biffa staff gained more experience of their collection rounds.  Members noted that the performance for July 2020 had returned to levels prior to the outbreak of COVID-19.

Due to the suspension of garden waste services during April and May 2020 as a result of COVID-19, the garden waste subscription was reduced by £5 for those residents renewing their subscription following disruptions to the garden waste collection service. The predicted income based on this change was approximately £78,000 lower than the target set for 2020/21, but that figure was expected to reduce further.

More work was required to identify sources of contamination to recycled waste and for action to be taken to exclude those items.  There was an EU target for the UK to re-use, recycle and compost at least 50% of household waste by 2020. The performance in 2019/20 was comparable to the previous year except for Quarter 4, which had been affected by the disruption to the garden waste service during March 2020.

Independent surveys of streets were completed by an external consultant every four months to measure litter, detritus and dog fouling. The results demonstrated that Biffa were meeting the required standards in all areas overall and consistently exceeding target in litter and dog fouling.

Camber Sands Task Force that Biffa established to cleanse the Camber dunes and beaches had proved largely successful during both the 2019 and 2020 seasons, however peak visitor days still proved challenging.

Fly tipping had increased during the months of May, June and July 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.  It was felt that the Government imposed lockdown combined with household waste recycling sites being closed had contributed to the increase.

Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and the following points were noted during the discussions:

•           Subject to the adoption of the UK Environment Bill, food waste collections were to be adopted from 2023.  The contract with Biffa had been written to include this, but costs remained to be seen;

•           Members felt it unfair that garden waste was included in the target for recycling waste as not all residents wished to pay for this service.  It was noted that this was consistent across the country;

•           the previous contractor had passed data on Assisted Collections to the new contractor and it was noted that the missed bins figure for August, produced since the report had been written, had decreased to 30.  This remained a focus for the Council;

•           Members paid tribute to the Waste Collection operatives and Council officers for the service provided over lockdown and the recent pandemic; and

•           Members thanked Dr Anthony Leonard who had been the driving force in setting up the successful Joint Waste contract, initially with four local Councils.

The new contract was performing well in comparison to performance under the previous contract; however, there were still improvements to be made and the missed bin performance was not satisfactory in the longer term.  Members recognised that Biffa were improving what was a failing contract under the previous contractor and noted the importance of continuing to support Biffa to improve performance.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.

(Councillors Barnes, Clark and Mrs Earl-Williams each declared a Personal Interest in this matter in so far as they were elected Members of East Sussex County Council and in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct remained in the meeting during the consideration thereof).

(Councillor Maynard declared a personal interest in this matter as an Executive Member of East Sussex County Council and in accordance with the Members’ Code of Conduct remained in the meeting during the consideration thereof).