Councillor claims residents will flytip and report via Cleaner Brent App to avoid £35 bulk collection charge

Councillor John Duffy (Labour, Kilburn) has returned to the theme of alleged waste in Brent Council's waste policy. He has sent the email below to all councillors:

Dear Councillors,

It is obvious to anyone who understand data there is a direct correlation between the failure of the Cabinet to monitor the bulky waste service and ensure the contractor perform to contract specifications and the increase in fly-tipping.

It is unacceptable that the cabinet were aware of the both the rising fly-tipping figures and the rising delays in the bulky waste collection Times and chose to do nothing. It is clear  to me the longer the waiting time for the bulky waste service the more likely the waste is to be dumped on the Street. It is also clear residents are resourceful and using the Cleaner Brent  App to report their own dumped furniture/waste (therefore the rise in reported dumping) therefore getting the waste taken away for nothing in 24 Hrs rather than wait the 8 weeks for a collection.

The likelihood of thing improving once the £35 charge has been introduced is remote and clutching at straws, especially  as residents will soon realise they have already paid for the collection service once in their Council Tax.

It beggars belief that  the cabinet are offering our residents the choice of paying £35 for  bulky collection that will take  up to 5 days too collect or to take the items  outside and use the Brent Appto report the dumping and get it picked up in 24 hrs  for Free. I think many will chose the second option especially when they realise  they have already paid for the service in their council tax.

I believe the service will yield little income and will increase fly-tipping, I have asked the CEO on Monday to suspend the charge and asked for a full evaluation.The CEO has not got back to me, but I understand her and the leader will not suspend the £35 charge and stand by it.

I am having further conversations with residents groups to put together a package of improvements based on environmental needs. Which I will hopefully update you with on Monday.

One of the guiding philosophies in the environment is the polluter pays, however what the cabinet are suggesting is the polluter pays twice.

I still hope the cabinet will see reason and enter into dialogue to improve the environment and suspend the £35 charge, however based on my previous experience that will not happen. 

See below email

Dear CEO and All Councillors ,

I am very concerned about the £35 charge for Bulky Waste as I believe the decision is double charging residents for a service they already pay for and has no financially modelling and is environmentally damaging and is not also sustainable,

The reason I believe this is the case because the charge is being brought in to hide the failings by the cabinet to improve services. The service has gone from a 5 day pick-up in 2014 when I (most of us) was elected to an 8 week delay today. The delay is wholly at the doorstep of the cabinet for believing in the supposed Zero Tolerance policy with Kingdom Security , which squandered resources, while misunderstanding the issues around contract compliance and sustainability.

As well as the wasting of resources on the KS contract one of the only environmentally revenue (we lost over £100k) from the government, that was available to us. The contract had no controls on what services were needed by the council. This allowed the contractor to chose the most lucrative areas for themselves , while avoided the areas of most need like street dumping .This lack of controls and other decisions taken by the cabinet has seen the number of case of fly tipping go up by over 32% from10,000 reported cases  to 17,000 reported cases in the last year alone.

I am therefore amazed with Fly-tipping rising at constant rate over the last 3 years ,the cabinet have decided  the best way to reduce fly-tipping is to introduce a £35 charge for the bulky waste service.

The Service

The truth about the existing service is the Street Cleansing contract is clear . The contract makes the contractor ( Veolia) liable to pick up 17500 bulky waste collections PA 70 pick-ups X 5 Days X 50 Weeks. This year we picked up 17485 collections. Albeit the service clearly running at near capacity, it should not have lead to an eight weeks delay….. It would seem that the residents have already paid for this service via the council Tax for the street cleansing contract and the disposal contract, but the cabinet failure to ensure contract compliance and Fly-tipping as their priorities have let the service fail.

Financial Modelling.

Albeit the service has been paid for once. I believe there is a case for more investment in the environmental services. However I believe the £35 charge will be the highest charge by any licensed waste carrier in Brent and is not competitive and the charge will have a negative affect on the environment .Those who will not pay the £35 will do one of the following.

(i)        Some will taken Civic Amenity centre , some residents will still have a problem transporting larger item,settee,mattresses.

(ii)       Some will use licensed private collectors.

(iii)      Some will use the grey bin ( breaking-up smaller items)

(iv)      Some will use Street dumping

(v)       Some will  use Street Dumping and use the Brent Cleansing Apt to report it.  

(vI)     Some will use unlicensed (White Van Man) waste carriers , much of which will end -up dumped on the street.

Model A 

I understand officers have based their modelling on a take-up from 11000 to 17000 collections and income between 25k to £250 , this seemingly is only based on a £35 per collections price. Their model excludes the collection of bags of rubble and some other items and the figures are very broad.

Whereas it is always hard to a financial breakdown  on what is a new charge, but there are obvious facts ,the service will still operate a substantial discount for residents in receipt of benefits  which can be as high as 20% so allowing for a 15% against what is in the contract 17500- 15% = 14875  paid collection. we also know the higher the cost the bigger the lose of customers.

I believe that a nominal fee of £10 should have little affect on paying on the people who pay now but the £35 will deter many my analyses is based on work I did some years ago on increasing costs for commercial Waste.

£10 cost Customers  lose 10% of customers   =  14131 X   £10 = £141000  (90% of customers including discounted residents)  

£20 cost Customers  lose 45% of customers   =    8181 X   £20 = £164000  (70% of customers including discounted residents)  

£35 cost Customers  lose 75% of customers   =    4462  X  £35 = £156180  (45% of customers including discounted residents)  

You can see from this model the £20 would bring in the most. The £35 is unsustainable because its more expensive that other options, however the £10 is more fair as the residents have already paid for collections in the Veolia contract and already paid for the deposal in the West -Waste levy. I also have more confident in the take -up of the £10 cost as its affordability for most residents.

There also other issues, why are we using 5 items as the cut of point , it is more logical to me to cut it to £10 for 4 items this is based on the bulky collection usually being one or two items (bed and mattress or a fridge-freezer) we could then charge a progression cost for £5 per item after that , believe this would also bring in more income.

Officers and the Cabinet say they oppose a progressive charge because they wish to keep the costing simple. I completely disagree there is nothing simple about doubling the price once you have past a threshold. A progressive charge is both fairer and reflects the true cost.

The Way forward

As you know I am trying to get the support of a number of councillors (hopefully in late November) to call a full council meeting  to discuss sustainable Environment policies around enforcement , recycling and  street cleansing. I will get back to you on those proposal shortly.

In the meantime I am asking the CEO and the Leader of the Council to consider

(1)      Freezing the introduction of the scheme until a full evaluation of the increase in fly-tipping is assessed.

If however you are not willing to freeze the introduction of the charge please answer the questions below as an FOI if you like.

(2)      Explain the price modelling. 

(3)      Explain why,now that we are charging, why are certain wastes prohibited 

(4)      Did  officers explore progressive pricing. 

(5)      How much increased revenue do you expect to received from the the new charge of £35 

(6)      What impact do you think the Charge will have on Fly-tipping. 

I understand under this scheme Brent are going to takeaway old Christmas Trees.I buy my Tree at Ikea for £16 , I feel hearten to know the council will take it away for just…...£35.

I think the cabinet have missed the point.

Cllr Duffy calls for Special Council Meeting on waste strategy waste

Cllr Duffy (Labour, Kilburn) has sent the following email to all Brent Councillors:

Dear Councillor

Firstly I am sorry for the length of this email , but I believe it deals with important issues.

I am asking for your support to call a special Council meeting to discuss the issues concerning  the waste of resources  around fly-tipping , enforcement and bulky waste collections, together with the cabinets failure to maximise income on the green bin service  and their failure to improve our recycling levels.

FLY-TIPPING

To get to the issue why I am sending this email  and to put it into respective. In Nov 2015 a scrutiny task group reported into fly –tipping which was plaguing Brent ( and other boroughs) and made up more than 90% of Street Environment complaints. The Task group review was concerned with "reducing the levels of fly tipping in Brent and ensuring clean and safe environments for Brent resident’s; and as a result, a reduction in cleanup and enforcement costs".

The committee looked at 14 different types of fly-tipping , which were causing problems in Brent. Dog-ends was not among them and did not figure in any charts made known to the committee. The task group was informed of 2013/14  fly-tipping incidents and costs. There were 7001 incidents of reported fly-tipping. 

The  Lead member for the environment advocated employing Kingdom Securities  to deal with the problem of Fly-tipping. Kingdom Securities are a well known low-wage , non-union company.. The cabinet and later the Scrutiny Committee agreed (against my advice) to award the contract to Kingdom Securities without going out to tender or looking at an In-House option. You may remember the details of that contract  that the private contractor was to get £46 per Fixed penalty notice (PFN) issued ,the council would get £34 for every PFN paid  and the council would  paid all legal fees and that Kingdom securities would not search or investigate fly-tipping instead they would concentrate on Cigarette dog -ends even though they were not named as a problem. Altogether approximately 6000 were issued ( many to vulnerable people ) therefore Kingdom securities received  £246k and the leadership and Lead member used the soundbite "Zero Tolerance"  to explain the policy.

How wrong they were!

Brent Council environment cuts break 'cleaner and greener' pledge

I reproduce below Brent Friends of the Earth's comprehensive response to the current Budget Consultation. I am sure that similar responses could be written on other areas of the proposed cuts making it clear that the level of cuts  now required is unacceptable and making no long-term economic or social sense.

Response to Brent Council Budget Consultation from Brent Friends of the Earth

Our members are concerned about the cuts to Council services overall, in particular cuts to vital front line services.  Whilst we recognise that Brent's income has been severely reduced, we do not wish to see vital welfare services axed, especially those for children. The vision of what will remain is stark and in some cases unrecognisable from the provision residents have come to know and expect as Council services.  However our comments as a group focus on the impact of proposed cuts to environmental services. We also question whether some of the cuts proposed will actually save money in the long run:

Brent Council: Communicating Rubbish

I was incensed yesterday when I saw the leaflet about Brent Council's waste collection that had been pushed through my door.  It put such a gloss on the £40 annual  'garden tax' charge for green bin collection that many people must have thought that it was almost as good as winning the lottery!

It advertised a free bulky waste collection despite the fact that proposals are going before the Council to introduce a charge of £15 for such collections.

The bulky waste collection charge has long been an issue between Labour and the Lib Dems. The Lib Dem-Conservative administration  introduced a charge of £25 and the incoming Labour adminstration in 2010 abolished the charge.

The arguments the then councillor James Powney made against the charge still stand.  LINK

Now Paul Lorber, Liberal Democrat Brent Council leader at the time of the £25 charge, has made a formal complaint to Council officers about the current leaflet. He suggests that the £15 charge was put into the proposals merely so that it could be withdrawn and show that the Council had listened to residents:

I have expressed my concerns as to how the scrapping of the weekly service and the proposed £40 charge for a reduced service has been presented. The latest leaflet delivered to residents continues to provide misleading and incomplete information.

I am disappointed that the misleading information produced by the Council and Veolia has continued. Please treat this email as a formal complaint on the following grounds:

I object to a reduced and chargeable service to be described as 'New' as if it was something positive when in fact residents are being asked to pay £40 for a substantially reduced service with collections just fortnightly during the summer and just monthly during the winter months.

On a separate issue I note that the leaflet is also advertising the 'Free' collection of bulky household items. This confirms the sham of the current budget consultation as the item to charge £15 for this service in the hope of a massive reduction in take up is just a 'sham' as this was put on the list simply to enable the Leader to claim later that this is one service "I have managed to save".

I think that the Council (officers and councillors) are showing a great deal of disrespect to Brent residents in the misleading way you are communicating with them. The leaflets are paid for from taxpayers money and should therefore provide honest information and not to reflect misleading information from the Labour Administration.