Cllr Southwood working on improving bulk waste collection service times with officers

A few minutes after I tweeted an update of my story on the long service times of Veolia's bulk waste collections LINK Cllr Eleanor Southwood tweeted that she shared frustrations at the service times and said that she was working with officers to improve the service.

UPDATE: It is time for Veolia's Public Realm Contract performance to be scrutinised

"Love where you live'

Brent Council's bulk collection service before the Public Realm contract was handed to Veolia used to take about a fortnight from request to notification.

I have received a number of complaints about how long it now takes for goods to be collected. 

This is an example sent in by reader Paul Lorber with a 7 week gap.

From Brent Customer Services June 15^th 2016
Thank you for your Special Collection enquiry. Your request for:
Item 1: Freezer
Item 2: Non Metal Bed Frame
Item 3: Other Household Waste
Item 4: Other Household Waste
Item 5: Other Household Waste
To be collected has been logged and your unique reference number is  XXXXXXX
Your items will be collected on 08 August 2016.
Please ensure the items are placed together in the front garden ready for collection.
If you have any queries or wish to change the week of your collection please telephone the Customer Services on 020 8937 5050.

 Lorber has asked what the service timescales are but remarks that if this service has been commissioned by Brent Council and is acceptable to them it is clearly poor value for money, although representing plenty of profit for Veolia.

 Lorber is fortunate in having a front drive in which the items can be placed but many residents have extremely small front gardens or none at all and is is surely no wonder that mattresses, sofas, fridges, gas stoves, lavatory pans and broken gym equipment all end up on the pavement attracting further fly-tipping.

Brent Council promised an improved service when Veolia took over but I pointed out what I saw as a weakness in the contract:

One aspect that may concern councillors is that Veolia will be responsible for monitoring itself:

The contract will be self-monitoring, meaning that the contractor is accountable for measuring, monitoring and improving their own performance with the council carefully auditing their performance. This, along with Key Outcome Targets set for each of the different services will ensure that the Contractor is motivated to deliver the services.

Veolia will also be dealing with complaints from councillors and residents in the first instance thus 'placing responsibility on the Contractor to ‘own’ and be accountable for service complaints'.

I think it would be useful for the Scrutiny Committee responsible for Public Realm to review Veolia's performance by inviting Veolia executives to answer questions from councillors and the public about the service.  Cllr John Duffy has raised a number of issues on his own blog LINK and on Wembley Matters  LINK  LINK

This should cover the grounds maintenance of BHP estates and parks maintenance which were handed over to Veolia along with street cleansing, cemeteries, sports centres and much else.  When the Council gave the Public Realm contract to Veolia they withdrew from the Green Flag scheme for parks and open spaces which had provided a widely valued external audit of parks maintenance.

One matter we have heard little about is how the litter enforcement contract, awarded to Kingdom, is working.  This was also criticised by Cllr Duffy LINK and an update on it would be useful as it was seen as a trial.  At the same time Veolia's promised role in spotting fly-tipping and acting upon it included  working with Brent's enforcement team. Is this happening?

From the original Officer's report to Cabinet on the Public Realm contract:

Fly tips will be cleared promptly. That is a key requirement. Veolia have committed their operatives to becoming “the eyes and the ears” of the council, trained to identify, report, and manage all day-to-day fly-tips using mobile devices. The initial role on all enforcement will be Veolia. Enforcement investigations will be managed as far as possible by the Veolia supervisors and managers who will ensure photographic evidence and pocket notebook records are taken to secure evidence. Once a case is correctly and sufficiently built, Veolia will work with Brent’s enforcement team to bring final prosecution. 


UPDATE; The day after this article was published Brent Council issued a press release on the Kingdom fixed penalty litter enforcment trial. LINK