AGENDA ITEM 4

BOROUGH OF POOLE

ENVRONMENT OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

2 MAY 2013

CHRISTMAS WASTE COLLECTION & COMMUNICATION ARRANGEMENTS

  1. PURPOSE OF REPORT

1.1 To review 2012 Christmas waste services communicationsand collection

arrangements and reconsider options detailed at the 6th September 2012

committee meeting as requested by elected members.

  1. DECISION REQUIRED

2.1 Members consider the report and support one of the options outlined.

  1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

3.1 A full report was presented to members on 6th September 2012 detailing

previously tried collection and communication arrangements, budget limitations

and 2012 plansincluding proposed improvements to communication plans. See

Appendix 1 for full report.

  1. COMMUNICATIONS

4.1 In seeking to improve 2012 communications within existing budgets the following

was undertaken:

A collection table was produced detailing areas for collection, last collection date

and next collection date during the Christmas period.

Detailed information was provided on boroughofpoole.com including the collection

table and question and answer topics to provide information on:

  • Why collections stop over the Christmas week.
  • Why Poole doesn’t make all households wait 3 weeks for a recycling collection.
  • Why Poole no longer issues clear bags for additional recycling.
  • Why Poole no longer delivers recycling calendars, with details on how to get one.
  • Tips on what to do with wrapping paper, Christmas cardsand sweet tins.
  • Details and opening times of Poole’s Nuffield Household Waste Recycling Centre.
  • Christmas tree recycling dates and locations.

Arrangements were published in:

  • Poole News (delivered to all households in Poole).
  • At Home magazine (issued to all Poole Housing Partnership properties).
  • Canford Heath Link Magazine
  • Creekmoor Link Magazine
  • A press release was issued in the Daily Echo.

In addition a recorded advisory message was playedon all incoming Borough of

Poole contact numbers handled by Customer Services.

  1. 2012/2013 CUSTOMER CONTACT

5.1 Customer contact via the Councils Customer Services department prior to and post

Christmas waste collection shutdown during the last 3 years is shown as follows:

Demand / 2010/11 / 2011/12 / 2012/13
Total demand (for all E&CPS services including Streetscene) / 7776 / 5066 / 3318
Total service requests raised relating to Waste Collection Services / 497 / 411 / 296

For a full breakdown of customer contact by type for the period, refer to Appendix 2.

Demands that can be associated with waste collection during the Christmas period

are shaded for reference.

5.2 The figures reinforce our understanding that the current working arrangements are

understood and accepted by the vast majority of residents. The data furthermore

clearly demonstrates that residents are generally aware of their collection dates

and would not benefit from thesubstantial unbudgeted cost of circa £40,000

associated with delivering collection calendars or bin stickers and a further £15,000

needed to support Customer Services to be able to respond to increased contact

volumes from confused residents should a 3 weekly cycle post closedown

collection arrangement be implemented.

Demand Type / 2010/11 / 2011/12 / 2012/13
Recycling Miscellaneous Calendar Request / 44 / 36 / 13
  1. COLLECTION OPTIONS 2013 ONWARDS

OPTIONS / FOR / AGAINST
Option 1
Continue as iswhereby every household misses one refuse collection and 50% of households miss one recycling collection.
Ensuring communication methods are maximised within existing available resources. /
  • This is a well established working arrangement, which the majority of residents understand and accept.
  • The impact causes temporary disruption to only 50% of residents which over time rotates across the borough to ensure fairness.
/
  • A small number of residents (based on the above contact figures) feel disadvantaged for one collection for a period of time until weeks naturally roll over and other locations within the Borough are instead affected.

Option 2
Move recycling collections to 3 weeks post Christmaswhich results in all households going an extra week before a collection. As opposed to the current 50% of residents waiting a one off 4 weeks and 50% remaining unaffected at any one time. /
  • Mayprovide an immediate visual service equality amongst concerned residents
/
  • This was tried in 2002/03 and proved unsuccessful with the generation of much higher call volumes from confused and dissatisfied residents from both those who forgotten they had changed and were due a collection and missed it and for those who thought they were due a collection and were not aware/didn’t remember they had moved a week.
  • This change would prove both challenging and costly to successfully communicate.
  • Operationally we do not have capacity to return to the high numbers of missed bins likely to be reported by confused residents.
  • To produce and mail out necessary branded communication required to ensure all residents are informed of the change in collection weeks costs can be broken down as follows:
£3,500 printing, £3,000 mailing house charges, £32,000 postage cost (2rd class) Total £38,500 annually
  • The vast majority of residents are currently very familiar with their established collection arrangements i.e. which week they receive their service. An annual change is likely to result in higher volumes of dissatisfaction, confusion and enquiries to Customer Services with all residents having to wait 3 weeks.
  • Likely to result in more residents leaving side waste which will exasperate the problem we saw last winter when high winds blew it away causing major littering problems and increasing clean up costs.

  1. RECOMMENDATIONS

7.1 That members continue to support Option1 and the continuation of current working

practices, with assurances that officers will continue to work to build on available

communication channels within existing budgets.

7.2 2013 will see the start of the migration from week 2 collections to week 1

collections and as such the areas affected by a missed recycling collection will

start to change.This will continue over forthcoming years to ensure fairness and

equality of service, without incurring unbudgeted costs otherwise necessary to

ensure effective communication of a change in service and disruption to 100% of

residents in the Borough.

Shaun Robson

Head of Environmental & Consumer Protection Services

Contact Officer

Kate Langdown

Street Scene Services Manager

Tel: 01202 261704

Appendix 1

BOROUGH OF POOLE

ENVIRONMENT OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

6TH SEPTEMBER 2012

CHRISTMAS WASTE COLLECTION & COMMUNCATION ARRANGEMENTS

  1. PURPOSE OF REPORT

1.1 To provide Members with details of existing Operational and Communication plans

for Christmas period waste collection arrangements and detail options for 2012/13

onwards.

  1. DECISION REQUIRED

2.1 Members consider the report and support one of the options as detailed.

  1. BACKGROUND

3.1 A five day Christmas week closedown has been operating within Poole since pre

1995. This agreement is in lieu of our teams working all other public bank holidays

including New Year’s Day and this year’s additional Jubilee bank holiday. The

arrangement avoids the repeated penalisation of Monday and Friday collection

residents throughout the year whose collections would otherwise be disrupted by

Bank Holiday service closedown.

3.2 The practice allows for a designated closedown during a period of natural high

demand for annual leave amongst staff, thereby avoiding the additional cost of

hiring in multiple agency staff to provide necessary cover and the obvious risks to

collection performance associated with loss of local area knowledge held by the

normal collection team.

3.3 This arrangementresults in one missed refuse collection for all householders, and

50% of properties miss one recycling collection (a one off 4 week gap between

collections on non perishable recyclate), with those affected annually tabled:

Year / Week 1 / Week 2
2006/07 / Missed all week / Not affected
2007/08 / Missed all week / Not affected
2008/09 / Missed Thurs & Fri / Missed Mon/Tues/Weds
2009/10 / Missed Fri / Missed Mon/Tues/Weds/Thurs
2010/11 / Not affected / Missed all week
2011/12 / Not affected / Missed all week
2012/13 / Not affected / Missed all week
2013/14 / Miss Mon & Tues / Miss Weds/ Thurs/ Fri
2014/15 / Miss Mon/Tues/Weds / Miss Thurs/Fri
2015/16 / Miss Mon/Tues/Weds/Thus / Miss Fri
Week 1 - Day / Area
Monday / Penn Hill, Branksome West, Branksome East
Tuesday / Broadstone, Creekmoor
Wednesday / Parkstone, Poole Town,
Thursday / MerleyBearwood
Friday / Branksome East
Week 2 - Day / Area
Monday / Penn Hill, Canford Cliffs
Tuesday / Hamworthy West, Hamworthy East
Wednesday / Oakdale, Canford Heath East,
Canford Heath West
Thursday / Newtown, Oakdale, Parkstone,
Canford Heath East
Friday / Newtown, Oakdale, Parkstone,
Canford Heath East

3.4 All residents are permitted to place out reasonable amounts of side waste for both

refuse and recycling during this period, which is collected by crews on a property’s

1st collection after Christmas. In addition, Poole’s Household Waste Recycling

Centre is open every day with the exception of Christmas Day, Boxing Day and

New Years Day for residents to use to dispose of excess waste.

3.5 We no longer provide residents with 2 clear recycling bags, as there is no longer a

need to separately identify this waste, previously arequirementunder the Council’s

waste disposal contract.Having renegotiated, we have an agreement that the

contractor will now accept recycling in boxes and other bags. As such like the

majority of other local authorities residents can place side waste out in any type of

bag or box for collection. Saving the Council £19,000 in bag purchasing and

distribution costs.

  1. PREVIOUS AND EXISTING COMMUNICATIONS

4.1 Despite this long standing working arrangement, and all the different

communication channels utilised over many years the Council ultimately always

receives a level of contact from confused and at times dissatisfied residents.

However, a total of only80formal complaints(Dec 34 & 46 Jan) have been raised

relating to this current operating policy, which suggests over 99%of residents

acceptthe practice once understood.

4.2 Channels of communication used in previousyears include:

a) boroughofpoole.com website including Your Poole– ONGOING

Information can be found on the home page of the web site providing links for

residents to more detailed collection information. Your Poole is available for

residents to download collection calendars using their address details. Calendars

provide Christmas period collection information.

b) Poole News - ONGOING

A full page is given to Council Christmas working arrangements which include

waste collection.

c) Recorded message via Council customer service contact number - ONGOING

This provides details of when services stop and resume and explains side waste

options

d) Collection calendars – ONGOING

These are available online via Your Poole for downloading or a hard copy can be

requested via Customer Services 261700.

The previous two year recycling calendar which was delivered to all properties ran

out in November 2011. The cost for design and distribution was paid for through

other schemes i.e. collection day changes, WRAP behavioural change fund and

even a sponsorship from Dorset Camera Partnership. It costs a minimum of £4.5K

for designing, printing and distributing separate calendars and is not without

complaints as calendars can be wrongly distributed due to split roads, corner

properties etc or mistaken for junk mail and unknowingly discarded by residents.

Any shortfall had been found from E&CPS general recycling budget which has

been reduced to zero in this financial year and as such unable to fund in future.

e) Article Daily Echo – ONGOING

Corporate communications team issue a press article detailing waste collection

which is used by the Daily Echo.

f) Posters in public buildings - ONGOING

Information posters similar to the Poole News article are placed in various public

buildings throughout the Borough.

g) Bin stickers - CEASED

We have not stickered bins in Poole with Christmas working arrangements for 3

years (including 2011). Our experience is that they did not prove effective

communication channel in reducing the volume of contact we received from

confused /unhappy residents.

Complaints received in relation to stickers included:

  • They contact us because they haven’t read the sticker anyway
  • Stickers make bins look scruffy
  • Stickers become confusing when there are multiple years of stickers stuck on bins
  • Stickers haven’t stuck due to wet or frosty weather conditions at time of application and have disintegrated
  • Residents didn’t put their bin out at the time crews were out stickering so did not get one
  • Residents have a sticker but don’t understand it
  • Sticker was not big enough to be able to read it properly
  • I have a sticker – but I still want to complain about disruptions to my collections

The production and distribution cost of stickers was approximately £9,000

h) Advertiser front page adverts - CEASED

Advertisements in the Advertiser have been placed in the past at a cost of £500.00

It became increasing difficult to secure front page advertising during the required

period and when questioned residents stated that the Advertiser was not a form of

media they referred too, with many viewing it as junk mail.

i) Advertising on collection vehicles–CEASED

In the past we placed communication on the waste collection vehicles at a cost of

£1,800.

This was stopped as it requires the removal of existing promotions e.g bin swaps,

general recycling messages to enable the display of temporary messages which

are not easily communicated using this form of media (text heavy) not pictorial.

  1. CUSTOMER SERVICES CONTACT TYPE AND VOLUME

5.1 Customer contact via the Councils Customer Services department between 20th –

December 2011 & 10th January 2012(prior to and post Christmas waste collection

shutdown) is shown as follows

A total of 5066 contacts were handled via the E&CPS 261700 number of which

1504 related directly to the introduction of a chargeable garden waste collection

service.Of the remaining 3562 contacts these can be apportioned as follows:

1252 (35%) of calls related to requests for information including:

  • What are the arrangements during this period?
  • When will you be back collecting bins
  • How much side waste can I put out?
  • How should I present my side waste?
  • Can I have a recycling calendar?
  • Other services provided by Environmental & Consumer Protection Services e.g. licensing, noise nuisance etc

2311 (65%) of calls of which only 448 could be apportioned to waste collection

resulted in the creation of cases requiring further contact including:

  • Request for formal explanation of policy
  • Why is it always my recycling week that is affected?
  • Suggestion for change of arrangements
  • General unhappiness about having to wait longer for a collection
  • Formal complaint against the service – 80 cases in total

5.2 For a full breakdown of customer service request by type for the period, refer to

Appendix 1.Demand that could be associated with the Waste Collection duringthe

Christmas period working arrangements are highlighted in green

6. OPERATIONAL WORKING ARRANGEMENTS FOR 2012 ONWARDS

6.1 There is no proposal to move away from the existing 1 week Christmas closedown.

This is a long established working arrangement, which ensures fairness to Monday

and Friday collection residents throughout the year and is valued by staff and Trade

Unions.

Options for post closedown collection arrangements are proposed as follows:

OPTIONS / FOR / AGAINST
Option 1
Continue as outlined above in 3.2 whereby every household misses one refuse collection and 50% of households miss one recycling collection.
Ensuring communication methods are maximised within existing available resources refer to point 7. /
  • This is a well established working arrangement, which the majority of residents understand and accept.
  • The impact causes temporary disruption to only 50% of residents which over time rotates across the borough to ensure fairness as illustrated in point 3.2..
  • Many residents have already either downloaded or been sent a hard copy of their recycling calendar for this year as part of the produced two year publication and are aware of the 2012 planned Christmas working arrangements.
/
  • A small number of residents (2.6% based on the above contact figures) feel disadvantaged for one collection for a period of time until weeks naturally roll over as illustrated in point 3.2 above.

Option 2
Move recycling collections to 3 weeks post Christmaswhich results in all households going an extra week before a collection. As opposed to the current 50% of residents waiting a one off 4 weeks. /
  • May provide an immediate and obvious service equality amongst concerned residents
/
  • This was tried in 2002/03and proved unsuccessful with the generation of much higher call volumes from confused and dissatisfied residents from both those who forgotten they had changed and were due a collection and missed it and for those who thought they were due a collection and were not aware they we move a week.
  • This change would prove both challenging and costly to successfully communicate.
  • To produce and mail out necessary branded communication required to ensure all residents are informed of the change in collection weeks costs can be broken down as follows:
£3,500 printing, £3,000 mailing house charges, £32,000 postage cost (2rd class) Total £38,500 annually
  • The vast majority of residents are currently very familiar with their established collection arrangements i.e. which week they receive their service. An annual change this is likely to result in higher volumes of dissatisfaction, confusion and enquiries to Customer Services with all residents having to wait 3 weeks.
  • Likely to result in more residents leaving side waste which will exasperate the problem we saw last winter when high winds blew it away causing major littering problems and increasing clean up costs.

7. IMPROVING COMMUNICATION

7.1 There are no identified funds available to support increased promotion of

Christmas period working arrangements or reintroduce distributed collection

calendars.

There is instead a need to ensure we maximise the use, and accessibility of the

existing channels available.

Actions proposed:

  • Increase profile of Christmas collection arrangements on front page of boroughofpoole.com
  • Improve visibility of ‘Your Poole’ facility on boroughofpoole.com and support planned improvement to reliability of the facility to enable residents to access the information directly.
  • Provide recorded advisory message on all Customer Services contact numbers not limiting it to the 261700 number and providing details of sources for further information
  • Design high profile signposting to Christmas collection information utilising the front page of Poole News
  • Review content of Poole News Christmas working arrangements to improve clarity and ease of understanding for residents
  • Extend information to PHP At Home magazine and other non chargeable local publications, neighbourhood watch, public buildings etc
  • Introduce banner at Household Waste Recycling Centre outlining Christmas operating arrangements
  • Extend press release to local radios and encourage their take up of the arrangements
  • Communicate that trade waste and communal properties with identified capacity limitation will continue to be collected which is why some residents will see refuse vehicles in operation during the close down week.

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