Agenda item

That the Committee accepts the reasons for the overspend in the Streetscene and Transportation Portfolio and is assured by the on-going work within the service to mitigate the overspend.

The Chief Officer (Streetscene and Transportation) introduced the report to provide more information on the reasons behind the projected overspend of £1.108m for the financial year 2015/16 in the Streetscene and Transportation Portfolio.  

                        He explained that the projected overspend was due to a number of elements which had been as a result of the delay in implementation of some proposals.  He assured Members that these delays would not reoccur in the future and were therefore one-off overspends. 

            Waste Collection Policy

                        The Council’s revised waste collection policy was approved by Cabinet in April 2015, which created a delay in the introduction of a number of revised working arrangements for the waste service.  The policies required significant consultation and could therefore not be implemented immediately after approval by Cabinet.  The cessation of the waste container delivery service which was introduced in July 2015 had resulted in an overspend of £50,000 and the new service charge for a second garden waste bin was to be introduced from March 2016 resulting in a loss of income of £25,000.  Following extensive public engagement and resident/member notifications, the seven day waste collection service had been introduced from mid-September which meant that the full year benefit had not been achieved. 

                        The proposed rationalisation and changes to Household Recycling Centre provision (HRC) were further delayed by a Call-in on the original Cabinet decision and as a result of the delay, the total overspend was £175,000. 

            Car Parking Strategy

                        The Strategy was approved in April 2015 and had been delayed due to the need for a full statutory consultation period which resulted in a loss of income amounting to £110,000 against the full year target at period 5. 

            Grass cutting policy

                        The grass cutting policy was also approved by Cabinet in April 2015 which included the reduction in the frequency of some grass cutting services and the decision to outsource some of the provision.  The decision came after the commencement of the grass cutting season and the delay resulted in the partial loss of the full year saving of £50,000. 

            Zero tolerance for littering

                        The Chief Officer (Streetscene and Transportation) explained that a later than expected introduction of the proposals had contributed to the overspend within the service which he was confident was a one-off. 

Other areas, including the reduced electricity sales from the gas engines at Brookhill and Standard landfill sites (shortfall in income of £150,000), the under achieving income levels in the waste recycling market (loss in income at period 5 of £236,000) and Denbighshire County Council reviewing its own contractual arrangements for composting their domestic garden waste (loss of £60,000 income), had all contributed to the overspend within the service.  The Chief Officer provided details of the reduction in rates per tonnage of glass, aluminium, steel and paper and said that, because this was a national problem, it had been identified as a corporate risk rather than a risk to the service. 

In response to a question from Councillor Marion Bateman about the gas engines at Brookhill, the Chief Officer confirmed that the old engines were still being used.  He spoke of options being considered to store the gas and use it during peak demand and added that the engines should be downgraded when the gas was low but this was prohibitively expensive.  Councillor Bateman also spoke about recyclates and asked whether new ways of dealing with waste in relation to the national problem of fluctuating recycling sale values were being considered, particularly as landfill charges were increasing.  The Chief Officer advised that WG recognised the problem and he spoke of the ongoing discussions with WG in an attempt to introduce a national merchant arrangement for the sale of recycling products across Wales. 

Councillor Robin Guest was sympathetic on the issue of the volatile recycling rates and agreed that it should be identified as a corporate risk rather than for the service.  He felt that there was little chance of recovering the amount, which accounted for 25% of the overspend, in year which was a cause for concern.  He also suggested that lessons needed to be learned about the timing of when policies or strategies were agreed and that appropriate implementation dates and efficiencies from their introduction needed to be considered carefully. 

The Chief Executive accepted the comments on the pace and expectation of the introduction of such policies/strategies.  He reminded Members that discussions were also being undertaken for allocation to the new portfolios during the debates on the budget for 2015/16.  He added that he was confident that the implementation of the car parking changes would overachieve on the amount of income expected to be raised.  He concurred that the actual level of income was above the projected levels. On the recycling figures he advised that approximately a third of the overspend within the service was as a result of the reduction of income from recyclates. 

Councillor Richard Jones said that the Council was unable to control the recyclate market rates but was in control of the remaining overspend of £645,000 and suggested that more accurate estimates could have been made, referring in particular to estimation of Out of County Placements which were also estimated.   He commented on the issue of the HRC sites and the delays in the implementation of car parking charges and requested a breakdown of the overspend of £645,000. 

Councillor Peter Curtis commented on the reintroduction of the car parking charges in Holywell and spoke of a previous arrangement that had been in place for the car park at St. Winifred’s Well where the charges were dropped for church users.  He queried whether this arrangement was still in place and the Chief Officer indicated that he would provide a response following the meeting. 

The Chief Executive welcomed the comments on the lessons to be learned on consideration of policies and their implementation dates and agreed that some policies took longer to implement than expected and that this had not been possible to reflect in the business plans.                                     

Councillor Mike Reece referred to the loss of £60,000 income from the review undertaken by Denbighshire County Council for the composting of their domestic garden waste, and queried whether the introduction of a woodchip machine was to be considered.  In response, the Chief Officer explained that this had been discussed but there were no immediate plans to do so. 

RESOLVED:

That the Committee accepts the reasons for the overspend in the Streetscene and Transportation Portfolio and is assured by the on-going work within the service to mitigate the overspend.