Scrutiny Committee voted last night not to refer back the proposed variation of the Veolia contract. Conservative and Labour councillors outvoted their Liberal Democrat and Green peers.
The call-in by Liberal Democrats and a Green member wanted a review of Veolia performance before implementation of the variation measures, as the Lead Member, Cllr Promise Knight, had not consulted with councillors over the issue. As the Lead Member was not present Cllr Butt substituted for her.
Cllr Paul Lorber presented the call-in and began by challenging the sum of £1.54m quoted as the cost of the 12 month variation. It included 20% VAT. As public bodies spending for the public good do not pay VAT or have it returned - the true cost was actually £1.2m.
Before the implementation of the additional measures he said there should be a Review that asked:
What is wrong? {with waste and litter system]
How do we improve it?
How much does it cost?
What can we afford?
After Cllr Lorber and other councillors had spoken about the level of complaints from residents about litter and fly-tipping the Chair, Cllr A.Patel, drew attention to the 'disconnect' between that experience and a procurement report that said that Veolia was performing well and feedback was positive, satisfying the contract's KPIs (key Performance Indicators). Cllr Mary Mitchell remarked that perhaps this meant that the KPIs were wrong.
Cllr Butt said that the contract in 2023 was devised at a time when there was limited funding and even now councillors could not expect a gold-plated service. Veolia could not be expected to do things for free. The Council were plugging the gaps with the variation operating over 12 months and then could evaluate and decide what was possible over the next period. He seemed a little confused because at one point he said, 'This is not a variation of the contract'. (2.41 in above video)
Environment Officer Chris Whyte pointed on that the latest contract came to an end in 2031 and that for such a large and complicated contract a review involving all parties would start in 2028 ahead of the procurement.
Cllr Butt said that the interim measures would address Brent's 'dirty weekends' when littering and flytipping took place but was not addressed until work resumed on Monday. Weekend and late night working would deal with some of the persistent problems. Chris Whyte said that the clear-up from weekend dumping lasted through to Wednesday so it was only on Thursday and Friday that Brent streets were really clean.
Questioning by Cllr Paul Ryan on the money available this year drew the information that an additional £3m, minus the £1.2m, for public realm was available in this year's budget. Members could make suggestions on how this could be used but the process for doing so was not clear.
10 comments:
sadly Labour haven’t learnt any lessons following the local elections and the Tory support is allowing bad decisions to continue being made. I can’t wait for the next local elections! Labour have a habit of blaming everything on the budget but you can’t blame the budget for a cleansing contract with badly set KPI’s, and a contract which now needs more money as it is failing. Looking forward to a Lib-Dem, Green coalition in a few years time :)
Having now listened carefully to the scrutiny debate and reviewed the contract itself, I think there is a risk of focusing on additional resources without first asking whether the standards already contained within the existing contract are being consistently achieved.
The debate understandably focused on additional litter pickers, sweepers and weekend cleansing. Those measures may well help. However, the contract already requires locations to be restored to Grade A following cleansing, meaning no litter or refuse present, and then maintained at Grade B or above thereafter. How many readers can honestly say their local high street or town centre is consistently maintained to either of those standards?
The contract also requires Veolia to achieve those standards through an "intelligence-led and targeted deployment of resources". In other words, the contract specifies the standard. It is then for Veolia to determine and deploy the staffing, equipment and resources necessary to achieve it.
What struck me from the scrutiny discussion was that very little attention was given to how those standards are evidenced in practice. The contract covers far more than sweeping pavements. It includes planted areas, around tree bases, and around and under street furniture and signage, yet these are often the places where residents encounter bottles, cigarette ends, litter and detritus accumulating.
Additional investment may well be justified, particularly to address the weekend cleansing gap highlighted by officers.
However, before asking whether Brent needs more litter pickers, scrutiny should also be asking how the council satisfies itself that the standards Brent is already paying for are being consistently achieved and evidenced through inspections and contract management.
During the meeting several councillors highlighted the disconnect between residents' experience and reported KPI performance. For me, that is the more interesting question, and one that deserves much greater scrutiny.
Well said!
Everything said above is valid - the problem with Scrutiny call-ins is that they are very restrictive and only allow us to raise and debate the actual decision. In this case it was the extra money on specific work for just 12 month and not the performance and delivery of the whole Veolia contract and whether it is delivering what Brent needs.
The reason I raised the issue of the VAT is my concern that the Administration and the Lead Labour Councillors are clearly financially illiterate about something as simple as the true cost of the service they propose to spend money on. The cost of the extra projects to Brent Council they were proposing was £1,283,334 and not the £1,540,000 claimed in their report. The difference is a cool £256,660 which is clearly a lot of money.
So the 2 Tories on Scrutiny let Cllr Butt and his incompetent Lead Members off the hook. And they claim there is No Labour/Tory Pact? Pull the other one.
Leverage with the only bidder? :(
How much extra council tax payers money is being spent on enforcement in Wembley Park at all the extra Wembley Stadium events???
And how much council tax payers money is being spent on cleaning up Wembley Park after all the extra Wembley stadium events???
Is the budget for other areas in Brent being squeezed to subsidise enforcement and clean ups in Wembley Park???
Today I witnessed a Veolia refuse truck in Ealing Road, Wembley - the crew were emptying wheelie bins and leaving a trail on litter behind them on the road, that had fallen out of the bins as they were loaded onto the truck for emptying, they made no attempt to pick up this waste.
And then I saw fly tipping in Chaplin Road and a Veolia truck pulled up on double yellow lines - I thought they were going to pick up the fly tipping, but no - they had only pulled in to drop of one of their workers, who wandered off up the road with his coat and bag and then the truck drove off leaving the fly tipping which they could clearly see behind.
Thanks Paul. The restriction on what could be considered through the call in helps explain why the wider Veolia contract wasn’t examined in more depth.
Your VAT point also raises another question for me. Brent allocated £3m of additional public realm investment, so once the actual net cost of these measures and any other commitments are taken into account, residents should be able to see clearly what remains and what options are being considered for it.
In the Kenton ward, I would particularly like to know whether Brent has considered using some of that investment to establish a directly managed public realm response capability alongside Veolia.
Rather than assuming every additional cleansing requirement has to be purchased through the existing contractor, it would be useful to see the cost and benefits of a hybrid model properly evaluated.
If the conclusion is that additional Veolia resource offers better value, fine, but I think residents deserve to see the comparison.
Completely agree Fiona. The disconnect between what residents experience and what the KPIs apparently tell the Council is the part I find most concerning.
There is another question I would really like scrutiny to explore though, which is the delivery model itself.
If Brent is now having to spend significant additional money to plug gaps in a contract that runs until 2031, why does the answer necessarily have to be purchasing more resource from the same contractor?
Why not at least evaluate a hybrid model, there are examples in Europe and here of this? Veolia could continue delivering the large scale scheduled services it is contracted for, while Brent develops a smaller directly employed and managed public realm team that can respond quickly to FixMyStreet data, persistent fly tipping hotspots and other local problems.
That would give the Council some direct operational capability rather than being entirely dependent on variations to a very large outsourced contract whenever additional resource is needed.
It might turn out that Veolia remains the better value option, but surely scrutiny should be asking for that comparison rather than assuming it.
With the huge sum of additional public realm investment available this year, this feels like exactly the time when different approaches should at least be evaluated and properly costed.
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