HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
WASTE MANAGEMENT CABINET PANEL
WEDNESDAY 6 JULY 2011 AT 2.00 PM
COUNCIL FOR THE FUTURE – THE RIGHT LEVEL OF PUBLICLY FINANCED SERVICES (HOUSEHOLD WASTE RECYCLING CENTRES)
Report of the Director of Environment & Commercial Services
Author: Matt King, Team Leader Waste Management
(Tel: 01992 556207)
Executive Member: Derrick Ashley, Transformation, Performance & Waste
Management
1.Purpose of report
1.1To provide Members with a progress report on work undertaken to review the household waste recycling centre network and seek views on the development of a specification for the future service.
2.Summary
2.1As part of Council for the Future discussions in 2010, the Cabinet agreed a recommendation of this Panel that officers bring to the Panel, by July 2011, a transformation plan to achieve a better quality, better located network, showing how reductions of 25% (in operating costs) can be achieved and incorporated in procurement of the replacement contract by October 2014.
2.2This report seeks todevelop, and build upon, the principles already established through the previous rationalisation work, started by the Environment Scrutiny Committee in June 2007, and subsequently considered by this Panel. The process provided guidance on the purpose and function of a Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) and has, to date, shaped the network of centres through the closure of the Tring and Watford HWRCs.
2.3This report looks in detail at the current levels of performance and quality within the network, set against the background of national legislation, and draws comparisons on a national and peer authority level to establish where the service currently stands and those areas that would be most effective in delivering cost reductions.
2.4This report seeks views on further investigations into the development of HWRC service standards for resident journey travel time, centre capacity, availability and accessibility which will lead to a further report to the Panel.
3.Recommendations
The Panel is asked to endorse the following recommendations:
3.1That officers present to the September Panel meeting proposals for a HWRC network which:-
- maintain high levels of re-use and recycling,
- are based upon a new travel time standard for residents,
- complement broader Hertfordshire Waste Partnership activity,
- reduce operating costs by 25%
3.2That officers explore the nature and timetable of a procurement exercise which would be required to obtain the desired service, including an outcome-based contract.
3.3That the current capital programme is directed towards renewal or enhancement of the HWRC network where this would produce improved performance in line with established Service Property Priorities.
4.Background
National Legislation
4.1Under Section 30(2)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, Hertfordshire County Council is required to perform the statutory functions of the Waste Disposal Authority (WDA) for Hertfordshire. It has two main duties:-
a)to arrange for the disposal of the controlled waste collected in its area by District and Borough Councils in their role as waste collection authorities; and
b)to arrange for places to be provided at which persons resident in its area may deposit their household waste and for the disposal of the waste so deposited.
The arrangements made under b) above shall be such that:-
a)each place is situated either within the area of the authority or so as to be reasonably accessible to persons resident in its area;
b)each place is available for the deposit of waste at all reasonable times (including at least one period on Saturday or following day of each week except a week in which the Saturday is 25th December or 1st January);
c)each place is available for the deposit of waste free of charge by persons resident in the area;
but the arrangements may restrict the availability of specified places to specified descriptions of waste.
4.2For the purpose of discharging its duties in respect of HWRC provision, the County Council may make available to the waste disposal contractors that are employed to operate the centres, plant and equipment for the purpose of enabling them to keep and/or treat the wastes received at the centres prior to its removal for transportation and disposal.
4.3It is worth noting what is meant by the term ‘household waste’. The precise definition is contained within The Controlled Waste Regulations 1992. Most of what is included as ‘household’ is what might be expected but there are exceptions. A prime example is waste arising from works of construction and demolition, which is, in fact, deemed to be ‘industrial’ rather than ‘household’. A further example is waste arising from tunnelling or any other excavation; this is also deemed to be ‘industrial’.
The Hertfordshire Network
4.4At the present time, there are 17 HWRCs in Hertfordshire, which are known by the name of their location. These are; Berkhamsted, Bishop’s Stortford, Buntingford, Cole Green, Elstree, Harpenden, Hemel Hempstead, Hoddesdon, Letchworth, Potters Bar, Rickmansworth, Royston, St. Albans, Stevenage, Turnford, Ware and Waterdale.
4.5All the HWRCs are managed and operated under individual contracts by specialist contractors. Following the recent administrative receivership of one of the original suppliers, there are now two separate contractual arrangements in place; those for the Berkhamsted, Elstree, Letchworth, Rickmansworth and St Albans expire in October 2013 with the option for a one year extension and the remainder expiring in October 2014. The container haulage services for the centres are provided separately, as are the recycling and reprocessing arrangements. This approach has been employed and developed over the past 20 or so years and is working efficiently and cost-effectively.
A Better Quality Network
4.6The rationalisation work to date has been informed by the Environment & Commercial Services Department’s Service Property Priorities (SPP) reporting system. A summary of the policy options, presented to the 16 November 2010 Panel for the centres in the network and guided by the previous SPP work, is shown as Appendix A.
4.7The Council for the Future rating for the household waste recycling centre service is considered as ‘Gold, i.e. comprehensive service significantly above the statutory minimum’. This is true, in so far as the national legislation shown in 4.1 above describes ‘places’, that is, plural, indicating that a strict interpretation might be no more than two centres for the area served. However, clearly, adopting a standard so severe is highly unlikely to provide a service that is fit for purpose for a county the size of Hertfordshire.
4.8The challenge is therefore to consider where elements of the current service could be reduced from ‘gold’ to ‘silver’ and/or ‘bronze’ without any significant disbenefits to residents. The cost of the HWRC service in 2010/11was£5,957,431.
This expenditure was broken down as follows.
- Operation, Management & Supervision
- Utility Bills & Maintenance Costs
- Container & Haulage Services
- Recycling & Re-processing
- Residual Waste Disposal
Observations for each of these elements are as follows:-
Operation, Management & Supervision costs: This is an area that warrants further investigation into the possible advantages/efficiencies and consequential impacts of a reduction in staffing numbers at the centres and the potential for a reduction in operating hours or whole days at centres throughout the network or a reduction in site number.
Utility Bills and Maintenance Costs: These are the operational running costs experienced with a centre, for example, grounds maintenance, pest control, lighting, drainage, pot hole repairs, line-marking and compaction equipment maintenance. The waste management unit has a process of achieving best value through competitive quotations against a detailed specification despite the relatively low value of the individual requirements. This is not to say that the maintenance is necessarily of a ‘gold’ standard, moreover acceptable in the context of maintaining a facility capable of handling high numbers off site users in a safe environment, for example, maintaining the site surface to limit damage claims. It is proposed that the current efforts in delivering maintenance costs be recognised as efficient and is not considered further in the context of this report.
Container & Haulage Services: This has been the subject of a recent procurement exercise following the administrative receivership of the previous supplier. The decision to purchase the containers from the administrator is set to ensure the new arrangements do not increase expenditure in this area for the next five years.
Recycling & Reprocessing: The service has seen dramatic improvements in the quantities of wastes diverted from the residual waste stream destined for disposal to landfill and it is recognised that, at levels of diversion of approximately 70% of all waste received, the centres are very effective in this regard.
Residual Waste Disposal: The quantity of waste disposed to landfill is linked to the landfill tax escalator and consequently, further diversion is of importance as is ensuring that the network does not increase the amount of waste to landfill. Analysis of this waste stream indicates that efforts in seeking reprocessors for items such as carpets and promoting re-use ideals throughout the network warrant further investigation. However, as explained in 4.11 below, it is recognised that the centres have a comparatively low quantity of residual waste and therefore, the potential to make a significant contribution to the required efficiency targets is reduced.
4.9When considering the impacts of reductions in the management, operation and supervision element of the service, it is principally the staffing levels and the availability and number of centres where savings may be made.
Identifying savings in reduced staffing costs is not straight forward, as it would be subject to negotiating discounts with existing suppliers if implemented prior to the new contracts in 2014, and is ultimately limited in that the requirements of the service, including compliance with Environmental Permitting, site user safety and the ability to manage effectively with ‘peak usage’ at the centres must be maintained. The work is further explored in Appendix B which considers both the potential financial benefits of a negotiated reduction in staffing numbers and also the potential impacts of such a reduction.
In summation,the figures suggest that to reduce the staffing numbers, whilst providing a potential saving, is likely to prove a false economy. Having less staff on site would affect their ability to monitor and manage the incoming waste. This may lead to an increase in costs, for example, more haulage costs through poorly loaded containers, less separation from residual waste meaning increased landfill costs, more contamination leading to supply and quality issues with potential for less value for some of those income generating materials, less focussed customer care leading to more complaints and lower user satisfaction. Therefore, it is the number of centres provided, or the availability of those centres, where there is the potential for greater efficiency and not through changing the ‘culture’ and practices adopted by contractors upon arrival by residents.
4.10In consideration of any amendments to centre opening hours, this report is advised by the recent procurement of contractors to operate 12 of the 17 centres. The tender documentation requested bidders to submit the savings to the Authority that may be achieved during the current contract period by a reduction in opening hours at the sites. The resultant tenders from all suppliers indicated a very limited to nil reduction in cost to the Authority. Accordingly, this report recommends that any implementation of a reduction in opening hours and or days coincides with the award of new contracts in 2014 and is informed by the traffic counter usage data after consideration of the ‘peaks’ and ‘troughs’ in site usage.
Performance
4.11The service has demonstrated increased performance in recent years, as displayed in the table and corresponding graph below. This shows a reduction in total waste throughput across the network of approximately 64,000 tonnes per annum between 2001/02 and 2010/11. To put these figures into some context, at today’s costs of circa £78 p/t, based on an average of our current landfill disposal rates and tax for this year, a reduction in residual waste of approximately 74,000 tonnes equates to some £5.77 million per annum, exclusive of the costs incurred in transporting that waste!There is clearly a link between the performance in separating waste from the residual waste destined for landfill and the efficiency of any centre. To reduce efforts in this area would not prove financially beneficial to the Authority.
4.12The range of recycling services on offer enhances the opportunity for the contracted operators to separate material away from landfill and towards the more economically advantageous recycling and composting streams. Investigating further ways to divert elements of the residual waste alongside a policy of restricting those wastes that the authority is not obliged to accept have combined to create a network that performs significantly well against its comparators, both nationally and regionally.
2001/02 / 2002/03 / 2003/04 / 2004/05 / 2005/06 / 2006/07 / 2007/08 / 2008/09 / 2009/10 / 2010/11Residual Tonnage / 95,516.2 / 85,244.7 / 66,503.8 / 58,073.4 / 48,539.2 / 47,423.8 / 42,998.0 / 34,036.5 / 23,522.1 / 21,375.5
Recycling Tonnage / 37,919.3 / 44,512.1 / 46,297.5 / 52,678.6 / 46,707.6 / 47,946.2 / 46,780.0 / 50,612.0 / 52,039.5 / 48,156.3
Soil & Rubble Tonnage / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 2,358.9 / 10,746.9 / 12,262.6
Recycling Percentage / 28.4% / 34.3% / 41.0% / 47.6% / 49.0% / 50.3% / 52.1% / 59.8% / 68.9% / 69.3%
National and Peer Authority Comparisons
4.13For the purpose of comparison, and to establish the current levels of quality in the Hertfordshire network, Appendix C provides some detail for Hertfordshire against the 26 other comparable two tier county councils in England, which each act as Waste Disposal Authority in their area as sourced from the 2009/10 National Association of Waste Disposal Officers dataset for that year. General ‘league table’ comparisons have been made against the 26 other county councils, against relevant criteria, whilst specific comparisons have been made against the following authorities, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hampshire, Norfolk and Suffolk as they represent similar geographical areas, pressures, size, population, waste generation and socio-demographic factors.
4.14As can be seen, Hertfordshire performs extremely well both nationally and with the identified peer authorities. The Hertfordshire network is a combination of low cost and high performing.
User satisfaction
4.15The satisfaction surveys at the network over the years are summarised in Appendix D and generally provide a picture of a network that is well thought of by residents and a leading service for the authority. This is also a contributory factor to the perception of a ‘gold’ rating service and one which has much to do with the culture of customer focus that has been promoted by the waste management unit and embraced and enhanced by the contracted operators and by site users over the years.
A Better Located Network
4.16The previous rationalisation workincluded an assumption, correctly brought into question by the Panel, that the number of site users for each centre in the network was based on the composition of residual waste analysis carried out in August 2006. The waste management unit has, in recent months, installed a number of traffic ‘trip counters’ to better inform the future service provision. These numbers have been used to start informing a number of areas and the work to date is shown in Appendix E. Clearly, the greater the range of data received, the more accurate the extrapolated total number of site users will be. This area of work is subject to ongoing analysis and will be more fully reported to the September Panel meeting.
4.17A greater understanding of the numbers of site users will inform as to the capacity of any centre and its ability to cope with a recommendation for the closure of neighbouring centres in the development of a network that is suitable in terms of access and number and which is capable of sustaining service delivery for future years by allowing for growth in households within the County.
4.18The work undertaken on capacity to date is detailed in Appendix F and is useful in demonstrating current usage although the question needs to be asked of the Panel; what is their expectationfor the accessibility of the network? Consideration of this question will help assess the optimum number of centres that should be considered and, when taken in conjunction with the work on waste generation and travel journey times later in this report, will help shape the recommendations presented to this Panel in September.
In considering, ‘what is an acceptable service standard?’ Members are encouraged to discuss the service standard that they would expect on arrival at any household waste recycling centre. For example, should the network be designed such that it is, in theory, capable of meeting peak demand at all times, that is, the busiest hour of the busiest weekend of a year, and upon arrival a parking space is available for use by a resident without queuing? Or, do Members believe that it may be more appropriate to provide a service that operates at 125% of its capacity at ‘peak’ times? Accepting that inevitably, some queuing will occur, but that will be more suitable for performing an acceptable waste disposal function throughout the year. This may be the reduction from ‘gold’ to ‘silver’ and/or ‘bronze’ for consideration.
Waste generation
4.19Further investigation into the numbers of site users can then be linked to a statistically significant number of resident postcodes. This will inform Members as to the origin of waste and the volume of users entering the network despite generating their waste from outside the County in order to provide an estimation of the reductions in cost that ‘cross-border’ controls may generate.
The work undertaken to date is detailed in Appendix G and indicates where waste disposed within the network is being generated and the numbers of users that may be affected by a change in the network or a change in policy such as ‘residents only permitting’. This report suggests that Members acknowledge the approach and request further information to be presented on waste generation to the September Panel including the costs of setting up such a scheme and experiences elsewhere following implementation.
These user surveys have, like those before them, confirmed that, in general, residents use the HWRC that is most local to them. Understanding which HWRC residents will use is fairly easy in the towns that have a centre within their boundaries but it is much harder with those that don’t. The most obvious examples are with Hatfield, Hertford, Hitchin, Borehamwood, Sawbridgeworth and Welwyn Garden City, where it is not readily apparent which HWRC residents will use.