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Question From: County Councillor Amanda Jenner Subject: Recycling/waste collection problems
Question:
Thank you to the Cabinet member for her ongoing responses to my questions regarding the recycling workforce.
With regard to the management of the ongoing recycling/waste collection problems, please could you respond to the following:
Do the recycling workforce teams have specific targets that they are expected to meet in terms of recycling/waste collections being made to households on time? If so, how is this data captured and reported up to team leaders and directors?
Is there also a formal requirement for managers to then provide senior managers/directors with details of when services/collections were not met, through exception reporting, giving details of the actions they are taking to rectify missed collections?
Minutes: Response by Head of Service:
Thank you for your question regarding missed waste and recycling collections.
The teams do not have specific targets to reach in terms of collecting waste and recycling on time, they are expected to complete their rounds without missing any properties and the rounds are designed to allow them to do this. When occasional properties are missed, these are usually reported to us by the resident and we will endeavour to return to that property as soon as we can.
The recent missed rounds, particularly in the north of the County, have been down to lack of staff due to the national recruitment crisis and also the fact that covid is still with us and causing absence among the workforce. We have had some success with recruitment which has eased this situation, so collections have now started to return to normal. There will always be occasional issues with vehicle breakdowns which will cause missed collections and we do try to inform Members and residents when these occur.
The Area Managers and Senior Manager work very closely together to monitor performance and take action wherever possible, but as stated above, the problems that we have recently been experiencing have primarily been down to staff shortages which has been common to most authorities as well as private sector employers.
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