Scott Edgell, ?General Manager of Veolia Environmental Services UK, will attend the Panel for this item.

The session opened with a number of representations from Merton residents and businesses:

1.    Helen Clark Bell, Chief Executive of Love Wimbledon

As the representative organisation for 460 businesses in Wimbledon Town Centre, detailed how it and its members have worked in partnership with the Council.  Relations were good, communication was strong and partnership working was the norm.  However, following the commencement of the contract in April, feels that the streets in Wimbledon look the worst they have in years; bins are overflowing and streets are not swept.  Has taken action including meetings with senior Council officers and Veolia. Wrote to elected members and Cabinet Members to try and resolve the persistent and embarrassing state of the town.  Love Wimbledon’s street ranger now spends 50% of his time trying to resolve waste issues.

2.    Charlotte Holt, Cricket Green Ward

Reported a decline in street cleanliness in her area; no street cleaner has been seen in the ward for weeks.  Also noted the prevalence of fly tipping and the time taken for this to be addressed by Veolia.  Called on the need for a great improvement/change in the service being provided by Veolia.

3.    John Merriman, Crown Lane Studios

Detailed the difficulties he had experiencing in setting up a business waste service including not being able to locate a member of the Veolia team who could assist him and having to make repeated phone calls in order to secure a quote for a business service.  Noted that his business had gone with another provider in the end and questioned if Veolia cares about Merton.

4.    Edward Clark, Street Representative for the Apostles Residents Association

Highlighted that he had found out about changes to the waste service resulting from the commencement of the contract and had very good meetings with Merton officers.  However, feels that problems arise when messages are passed to Veolia; there is a lack of action when issues are reported.  Suggested that Veolia needs to be carefully monitored.

5.    Hilary Morris, Battles Area Residents Association

Recommended that the obligations under the contract need to be better monitored.  Noted that fly tips in her area are being reported but are not being addressed.  Cllr Neep is having to do a weekly monitoring visit in the ward and is repeatedly chasing Veolia to ensure action.  Residents are having to clear leaves and gutters themselves.  There are no regular street sweepers meaning rubbish dropped by bin men is accumulating.  There are also overflowing bins in the park and green sacks are not being cleared from streets on the same day.  Called for greater use of fines and enforcement.

Graeme Kane, Assistance Director for Public Space Contracting & Commissioning, responded to the representations made.  It is his role along with his three person neighbourhood officer team supported by the enforcement team to monitor and manage the waste and greenspaces contracts along with the South London Waste Partnership.  It is very much his aim to achieve a clean borough and streets through waste and recycling collections.  Takes no pride in the issues that have been highlighted.  Noted that some level of disruption was always likely with the commencement of the contract.  However, this has been longer and more significant than was thought likely.

Along with his team, he is continuing to work towards an improved service.   Expressed gratitude to residents and Councillors that are helping by reporting issues with the service.  He and his team will continue to listen to these reports and resolve the issues.  Highlighted that he and his team want to continue to hear from residents and Councillors when their expectations are not being met.  Noted that improvements are being planned to the website to make it easier to report issues with the service.

Scott Edgell, General Manager of Veolia Environmental Service UK, also responded to the representations made starting with an apology for the teething difficulties experienced with the service received since the commencement of the contract.  Highlighted that Veolia is very experienced in providing waste services for London boroughs as it holds the contracts for 13 out of the thirty two.  However, the contract is a challenge and Veolia is only now able to start restructuring and re-routing the service as it starts to build its local knowledge in order to make delivery of the service more effective.  Acknowledged the issue with fly tipping which requires more resources to address.

Stated that Veolia will deliver a good service with no dirty streets and an increase in recycling rates.  Accepted it had been a challenging few months with the transfer of staff from Merton’s employment and the rollout of new technology which still needs to be completed.  Requested to be invited back to scrutiny to demonstrate that whilst a fix couldn’t be instant he and Veolia are committed to making this happen.

Graeme Kane, Scott Edgell and Cllr Ross Garrod (Cabinet Member for Cleanliness and Parking) responded to member questions, providing the following clarification:

·         Graeme Kane: the presentation policy is clear: all bins need to be placed at the edge of the property (not on the pavement) by 6am on the day of collection.  It needs to be this early given collection times are beginning to change as Veolia starts to make alterations to routes as it builds its local knowledge;

·         Scott Edgell: the service is ‘as is’ currently.  Therefore completely the same as when the London Borough of Merton was directly responsible for the delivery of the service prior to the commencement of the contract;

·         Scott Edgell: Veolia staff are being effective in reporting fly tips – so far they have reported 4,880 tips in the first 190 days of the contract.  Staff are also reporting incidents of graffiti;

·         Cllr Garrod: the contract is very detailed and inclusive of financial penalties for poor service performance.  The Council is taking an active role in monitoring its implementation and the resulting service;

·         Graeme Kane: the right performance monitoring measures are in place; monitoring is being achieved through the collation of data from the website, call centre, Councillors, on the ground visits etc.  The contract is reviewed strategically through the South London Waste Partnership; 

·         Graeme Kane: it is feasible to deliver the service under the contract arrangement - the Council went out to the market in a open bidding process to which Veolia responded based on its experience of delivering equivalent services in other London boroughs;

·         Graeme Kane: the neighbourhood officers are working to build the relationships with Veolia’s representative which take times;

·         Scott Edgell: Veolia was prepared for the start of the contract and changed very little for the first four months to avoid disruption to the service. Veolia is only now starting to adapt the service to provide the same level of service in a more productive and efficient way.  This is informed by the data collection it has achieved over the past four months which is allowing it to start to modify routes etc to achieve greater efficiency;

·         Graeme Kane: agreed with Cllr Chung that efficient removal of fly tips builds expectation with those that are tipping that they can continue to do so.  The Council is about to launch a new campaign highlighting the fines that are issued for littering and fly tipping:

·         Scott Edgell: Veolia is working to deliver a parity of service over the next three months.  This includes having additional vehicles, ensuring that green sacks are removed on the same day, fly tips are cleared and litter bins emptied.  There will be an increase in the resources available to deal with fallen leaves and additional weed spraying will take place (with an emphasis on centre islands).  Teething issues are likely to persist into the New Year but these are typical for a new contract and similar has been experienced in other boroughs.  Staff training will also start to address difficulties.  Initially Veolia didn’t have sufficient data but this is being built over time.  Confident that significant changes in the service will be delivered over the coming months;

·         Scott Edgell: returning bins and recycling boxes to properties is always an issue.  Will ask Collection Managers to monitor by visiting a number of routes and taking any necessary action to rectify;

·         Scott Edgell: a lack of local knowledge is common when commencing a contract. This has been addressed by methodically documenting rounds and starting to make changes to achieve efficiency as this knowledge has been built.  Integrating the IT systems of both organisations will help;

·         Graeme Kane: the contract was let through a competitive process that saw several companies come forward with Veolia ultimately being successful.  It is not unusual for the details of the contract to remain private given their commercial sensitivity.  The Council is providing the service to residents and therefore it is important that it is clear about the service levels provided; we have provided these openly on our website and to Members;

·         Scott Edgell: it is usual that details of any Veolia contract remain private because they are commercially sensitive.  The South London Waste Partnership is currently looking at what information from the contract can be released; and

·         Graeme Kane: communication to residents about revisions to the waste collection service over the Christmas period is about to start.

Cllr Bull proposed a motion (seconded by Cllr Holden) to recommend to Cabinet that there be an investigation into whether or not there has been a fundamental breach of the contract.  Cllrs Bull and Holden voted in favour but as no other member did, the motion fell.

RESOLVED: the Panel resolved to make the following reference to Cabinet at its meeting on 13 November 2017:

1.    The Panel recommends the need to maintain the close scrutiny of Veolia and its fulfilment of the contract for waste, recycling and street cleaning, specifically over the next three to six month period (indicated as the time required to fix initial difficulties following the commencement of the contract);

2.    The Panel calls on Cabinet, and specifically the Cabinet Member for Cleanliness and Parking, to work in partnership with Panel members to ensure this scrutiny is effective through the sharing of resident and business feedback on the service and relevant data;

3.    In addition to that already provided on waste management and street cleaning in the performance monitoring report, members request that they receive trend data from the commencement of the contract updated monthly to allow them to readily understand the developing performance of the service including:

a.    The number of missed bins per 100,000 per month;

b.    The percentage of household waste recycled and composted per month;

c.    The total number of fly tips recorded per month;

d.    The total number of sites surveyed on local street inspections for litter per month;

e.    The percentage of sites surveyed on local street inspections that are below standard per month;

f.     The total number of incidents of graffiti dealt with per month; and

g.    The number of customer complaints received per month relating to the waste, recycling and street cleaning service.

4.    Where it is available, members would value having comparable data for each month of the last year of operation by LBM.

5.    Panel members also request updates are provided at each of their meetings for the remainder of the 2017/18 municipal year on:

a.    The integration of Merton’s customer relationship management (CRM) system and the contractor’s operational systems;

b.    Efforts being made to improve the collection of green sacks;

c.    The approximate value of service performance deductions per month imposed on Veolia under the terms of the contract;

d.    Progress being made with weeds through the scheduled application of pesticides in autumn and the New Year; and

e.    Steps being taken to ensure all operatives understand the ‘as is’ service including collection from the edge of properties and an adequate return policy.

6.    Panel members recommend that Mr Edgell be invited to attend its meeting in February 2018 so that progress against all these items can be further scrutinised with his assistance (in addition to him supporting the agenda item on the rollout of the new service provision which will come into effect in October 2018).  Thereafter, Mr Edgell (or another suitable Veolia representative as is appropriate) is asked to attend Panel meetings every six months to further support the scrutiny of the service being provided.

7.    Panel members recommend that the Cabinet Member for Cleanliness and Parking also attend all Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel meetings until the end of the current municipal year to assist it in undertaking its on-going scrutiny of Veolia’s performance.

8.    Panel members noted that this reference sits in addition to the action agreed at Council on 13 September 2017.