Meeting documents

To receive the minutes of the meeting of the PAG held on 1 March 2016.

The minutes of the meeting of the PAG held on 1 March were received.

None received.

The Portfolio Holder and Head of Service to update Members on Part 1 current issues relating to the PAG and to receive feedback from Members (if any).

The PAG were introduced by the Portfolio Holder to Elizabeth Cullen’s maternity cover, Eric Redford, and Balal Farooqi, the new Waste Efficiency Officer.

The Interim Director of Services briefly précised the progress of the Waste service review, detailing how consultation had concluded on the 27 May after high levels of engagement with staff, with those questions arising currently being responded to. The final structure of the service, along with job descriptions are to be issued to staff in the week commencing 20 June. Further to this, interviews are to take place over 3 weeks in July, with implementation cited as 1 October 2016. After a query from a Member of the PAG, the Interim Director of Services explained that those Wycombe District Council Staff who had previously joined with Chiltern District Council were already in the employ of Chiltern District Council. 

To note the report of the Portfolio Holder for Environment.

The PAG considered a report regarding how the Joint Waste Strategy 2014-2020 would be progressed following the dissolution of the Joint Waste Committee for Bucks.

The report detailed that as the Joint Waste Strategy 2014-2020 is now established, and all constituent Districts have rolled out their new collection services, the JWC has concluded that the Strategy would be delivered more efficiently by adopting a streamlined, less formal structure.

It was further detailed to the PAG that a forecasted underspend of £125,000 at year end 2015/2016 and the Waste Partnership Officer vacancy had provided an opportunity for Members to review the current partnership arrangements, whilst also acknowledging the benefits of joint working and sharing of knowledge.

The PAG were informed within the report that it was felt strongly by Members that a formal Committee was no longer required to facilitate continued successful campaigns and joint working, and that the notice period of 12 months for the dissolution could be waived provided there was agreement from each participating Council’s Cabinet.

After questions from, and discussion within the PAG, the Portfolio Holder agreed to RECOMMEND to Cabinet that:

1      subject to the formal agreement of all the constituent authorities, the Joint Waste Committee for Buckinghamshire be dissolved and the twelve months’ notice required by the Committee’s Constitution be waived;

2      the Joint Waste Partnership be retained as an informal entity to carry out activities to support the delivery of the Joint Waste Strategy 2014-2020;

3      a Memorandum of Understanding, as outlined in the report of the officers, be drawn up to regulate the activities of the Joint Waste Partnership with authority being delegated to the Head of Environment in consultation with the Head of Legal and Democratic Services to agree the precise terms;

4      the remaining funds in the approved budget of the Joint Waste Committee, once committed expenditure has been met, be used to fund a continued fly-tipping campaign across Buckinghamshire;

5      the grant awarded by the Department for Communities and Local Government for the Fighting Food Waste project be used to support the activities described in the bid for funding;

6      the partner Councils give consideration to making budgetary provision for the ongoing work of the Partnership once the remaining budget has been utilised, expected to be for the financial year 2018/19 and thereafter.

To consider the report of the Portfolio Holder for Environment.

The PAG were asked to note a Report informing Members of the progress of the Council’s contract with Biffa Municipal Ltd in 2015/16 as recommended by an internal audit.

It was drawn to the attention of the PAG that the internal audit received the outcome of substantial assurance – the highest that could be achieved, and garnered only two routine recommendations: enhancement of the governance via a regular report to Members on service performance and; the renewal of the Policies and Procedures for the waste collection service on a regular basis to confirm that they are still relevant and current.

In terms of key facts from the service, the report detailed that there were 7,363 justified contract instructions to Biffa over the course of 2015/16, which was seen as a low percentage of the service as a whole. It was also noted that it was not necessary to issue any defaults to Biffa throughout the course of the year, and that the 27 complaints received were offset by the 13 compliments also received.

The report went on to quantify that the Garden Waste Service for 2015/16 had surpassed both the 2014/2015 subscriber numbers (6,476), and the envisaged number of 7,000 subscribers, to 7,648 – an 18% increase.

Within the report, Members of the PAG were able to compare the Performance Indicators and targets to the previous years, which showed that: percentage of household waste sent for disposal had decreased from 48.50% to 47.23% in the year from 2014/15 to 2015/16; percentage of household waste sent for reuse, recycling and composting had increased from 51.3% to 52.77%; missed household collections per month had decreased from 154.8 missed collections to 89.3 missed collections. One item of particular note was the average time taken to remove fly tips, which had decreased dramatically from 3.07 days to 2.2 days: this was in main due to South Bucks counting non-working days in their targets, which other authorities did not.

Due to the abandonment of the national performance indicator NI195, South Bucks has been able to design and implement its own new inspection regime which better meets the needs of the district, which commenced in April 2015 – as this is not a Performance Indicator, no target has been set, but the aim of the service is to stay below 8% (this was the previous detritus target).

Members of the PAG were pleased to note that the total net revenue budget for the service 2015/16 was £2.993m, and the service was delivered within budget for all service provisions.

To consider the report of the Portfolio Holder for Environment.

The PAG received a report updating them on the 2015/16 fly tipping enforcement programme.

Members of the PAG were briefed on how fly-tipping has historically been a larger-scale problem within South Bucks in comparison to other Bucks areas due to the rural zones within the district attracting illegal fly-tippers. It was highlighted within the report that even with this problem, the number of fly tips with the district has followed the general County-Wide pattern.

Enforcement within the district has become more pro-active, with 23 cases submitted to BCC Legal Services for offences relating to fly tips in South Bucks (2015/16), and more than one fly-tipper being prosecuted per week by The Waste Partnership in the last 5 years. This is further supported by the Enforcement Team at BCC, and the increased surveillance activity that they are undertaking: in the first 2 months of 2016/17, 9 cases have already been submitted, with the trend predicted to continue – at the time of submission of this report, a prolific tyre fly-tipper had been caught.

None.