Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 8^th March 2016  and authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 8 March 2016 were agreed and signed by the Chairman.

The Sub-Committee will receive the Corporate Performance Report for Quarters 3 and 4 of 2015 and Quarter 1 of 2016, for areas within its remit.

Officers presented the quarter 3 and 4 performance reports for the Sub-Committees information.

The amount of residual household waste per household had remained in the green for both quarters, whilst a problem with missed waste collections in quarter 3 had been rectified by year end.

The areas showing a need to improve were the number of fly tipping incidents and the number of people killed or seriously injured on roads.

The Sub-Committee were informed that the amount of green waste being collected this year had increased, which was a reaction to the good weather.

Last year the Sub-Committee had focussed on waste minimisation due to the increased cost and future pressures. When the recommendations had been submitted to Cabinet it was clear that there was no appetite for limiting the amount of waste the authority would collect from each household or for moving to a fortnightly collection. The way forward was, therefore, to educate the public better to ensure containers were emptied before being placed in the bin and reducing the amount of food waste. Already this year we had seen an increase in the tonnage as population grows but no fall in the tonnage generated by each household.

Costs were on the rise with landfill tax hitting £87 per tonne and likely to rise each year.

The Sub-Committee was advised that the ELWA contract had many years to run and did not incentivise recycling as it would be the contractor who benefited not the Council. This would be difficult to change over the next 10 years.

It was projected that the cost of waste disposal would increase by between £500k and £1m per year over the life of the contract. The current costs were £14m per annum for disposal and £4m per year for collection.

The quarter 1 performance indicators were then presented. In accordance with the new arrangements agreed by Cabinet performance data will be presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committees first, then to the Overview & Scrutiny Board before finally being reported to Cabinet. 

Only 2 Corporate Performance Indicators fell under the remit of the Environment Overview & Scrutiny Sub-Committee, these were:

·         Levy waste tonnage

·         Avg. number of days taken to remove streetcare fly-tips.

Information regarding Levy waste tonnage was not yet available as this was provided by ELWA about 6 to 8 weeks after the period end. Figures for April and May were provided for information purposes. The levy waste tonnage PI also relates to the Corporate Plan critical success factor ‘Keep the ELWA levy contribution within the budget allocation.’

The number of days taken to remove streetcare fly-tips was a new indicator and this currently related to reported fly-tips. With the introduction of in-cab technology later this year the number of fly-tips removed would increase significantly. It was estimated that the current cost to the Council of clearing reported fly-tips was at least £140,000, this could increase to approximately £1m per year with the introduction of in-cab technology.

Officers advised the Sub-Committee that the perception  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2.

The Sub-Committee will receive an overview of the new Environment Service from the Director of Neighbourhoods.

The Director of Neighbourhoods informed the Sub-Committee of the restructure he had undertaken. He was now responsible for Regeneration, Economic Development, Planning and the Environment, that was everything to do with place.

A new live database had been created following a physical walkabout of the entire borough; this would help highlight capacity problems in certain areas. A report would be submitted to members in September.

Enforcement and Safety had been combined, moving operational enforcement in to one area under the Head of Regulatory Services. Community Safety would commission enforcement based on intelligence.

The Sub-Committee expressed some concerns concerning the lack of action by the police last weekend in Harold Hill. The Director of Neighbourhoods advised the Sub-Committee that officers had worked closely with the Police to deal with the traveller problem across the borough and procedures were now in place to deal with these.

The second area of change was the combining of the Highways and Parking Team in to one team with a new interim Manager.

Parks, Open Spaces, Highway maintenance and StreetCare were being brought together in one team whilst Culture and Leisure would fall under the remit of the Chief Operating Officer.

The next stage would be a review of frontline operations. It was difficult to benchmark performance because of a lack of performance data this would be addressed.  The review was about improving quality not savings.

The Director of Neighbourhoods agreed to come back to the Sub-Committee and keep them up dated on progress.

The report was noted.

The Sub-Committee agreed the work plan for 2016/17 as set out below:

In response to a suggestion that the Sub-Committee look at the issue of the public notices issued to appoint land for planning purposes officers had agreed to arrange a meeting between members and the appropriate officers to discuss this matter.