Waste Collections rounds have been increasing over the last five years in South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City. Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service (GCSWS) is the joint service collecting waste from households and businesses in both districts. The economic growth and national legislation changes are challenges the service needs to deal with . There is the opportunity to deliver service improvements to residents by consolidating waste collection on four days of the week.
Current Waste Collections Service
The GCSWS is a partnership between South Cambridgeshire District Council and the Cambridge City Council. The area of both councils is now popularly knowns as Greater Cambridge. The GCSWS is responsible for collecting domestic waste from 131,000 households and Commercial waste from 2,000 businesses across Greater Cambridge.
Greater Cambridge is one of the fastest growing economic areas in the UK. As the economy continues to grow, so does the number of business premises and housing. This results in increasing number of waste collections rounds and the need for more staff and vehicles.
There are currently 32 domestic waste collection rounds working across Greater Cambridge. Typically, a round will service around 900 bin collection points per-day. Over the past 5 years, about 13,400 homes have been added to the existing rounds. But increasing bin lorries and staff to kept pace with the level of growth has been challenging. Infact, only one extra vehicle has come into the fleet since 2017. Also, it is important to review operational routes are every three to five years. So the time is right for GCSWS to review its operational routes to take it into the future.
In two years, the GCSWS has only been able to fill around 133 of its 148 driver and loader posts. That means agency staff are covering the staff shortfall at extra cost to the Councils. Furthermore, the Service staff suffer high levels of sickness especially musculoskeletal injuries. This requires agency staff cover where possible or overtime by permanent staff all at extra cost. Currently there’s around 15 agency staff covering driver and loader positions at extra cost to the Service. Reducing this additional cost is important on behalf of the Service and its customers.
National Legislation Changes
Reduction, reuse and recycling are the top priority choices in UK government policy for waste. The Government has published a recycling target of 64% by 2035 in its Resources and Waste Strategy of 2018. This presents a challenge to Waste Collections Authorities due to the stagnation of recycling rates. There’s also increased pressure because of impending legislation designed to increase recycling. It is therefore essential that collection services are efficient prior to implementing these national changes.
Future Waste Collections Service
The GCSWS is considering the best ways to deal with the legislative and growth challenges. Greater Cambridge is expecting to grow by up to 2000 dwellings per year as in the current Local Plans of 2018 for both Councils. The Service has conducted a route optimisation exercise to streamline current and future waste collections. This is to improve service to residents and carbon footprint in line with the Council’s net zero objective.
Results from the route optimisation exercise demonstrates the Council’s opportunity to deliver efficiencies and improvements by consolidating waste collections into four days. This is why the Council is now considering extending the four-day week trial to the waste collections service.
This proposal comes on the back of the Council’s successful four-day week trial for desk-based staff between January and March 2023 as in this blog article.
Potential Benefits for Waste Collections service
The Council anticipates that reducing the working days for GCSWS will result in several benefits such as:
- significant improvement in staff health and wellbeing
- reduction in sickness levels due to increase in recovery time
- reduction in agency staff and recruitment of more permanent staff
- cost savings to the Service and its customers
- potential to recruit more diverse workforce
- developing local knowledge leading to completion of rounds on time and less missed bins
- improving the service that residents receive by eliminating collection changes for bank holidays
- improvement in recycling rates
- reduction in carbon emissions from commuting for net zero contribution
- several service efficiencies such as resilience and reliability
There are no plans to reduce service levels from what they are now as bins collections will be at the same frequency as they are now. The service review research shows other councils successfully operating four day waste collections services. These include Peterborough City Council, Fenland District Council and Ipswich Borough Council. Lessons are being learnt from these operations.
Financial Implications of Four-day week trial
Sometimes, introducing new processes involves additional upfront costs recouping and saving money in the medium to longer term. That is the case here. These proposals have gone through a full costing process. Part of the funding is from the standard formula for funds from Council tax for additional dwellings. The rest is from Section 106 contributions from new developments already in the current local plans of 2018.
Waste Collections Trial of Four-day week
The trial for the waste collections service is proposed to start in July (or August) and run for three months. The trial will only go ahead with the support of Cambridge City Council and will cost £33,000 for each council. The funding for South Cambs is to come from underspend in the operational budget for this municipal year. The trial will see the use of two bin lorries that were to go into retirement but not now, so no capital costs for this exercise.
Proposed Full Introduction
If the trial is successful, then the Councils will look to introducing the four-day week to the GCSWS. There will be cost to introducing this new way of working into future waste collections service. The first full year estimate for 2023/24 is £132,000 to cover additional payments for staff costs, vehicle maintenance, fuel, insurance etc. The cost increases in the second year to £207,000 for adding four additional bin lorries that the service will need. Two of these lorries are needed due to the increase in number of houses and commercial premises. The other two are for introducing the new working pattern.
It is important to put these costs into context. The gross expenditure budget for the Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Services is £11.611M for the municipal year 2023/24. This means the first year cost estimate is 1.1% whilst the 3-months trial is about 0.6% of the 2023/24 budget. Furthermore, this cost is split across both councils so SCDC portion is half of these estimates. Full details are in the report to the Scrutiny Committee at their meeting on 25 April 2023.
Concerns about Council tax should also be put into context. The Council tax for South Cambs for 2023/24 is an increase of 3.1% in comparison with the current inflation of 10%. This will generate £11M towards the £86M operational budget of the Council. Central government has been reducing the revenue funding for Councils since 2010, expecting local authorities to find funds from other sources. South Cambs continues to be one of the council areas with low council tax.
Conclusion
The Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service is reviewing its operational routes with a view to improving service to residents in both council areas. The Service also wants to overcome the recruitment and retention challenges it currently faces, and improve staff wellbeing. The Service review is in anticipation of changes in legislation and the impact of past and future growth. GCSWS is hoping to introduce a four-day week trial as part of the service optimisation to residents of South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge City.