Council apologises for festive bin fiasco
Residents across Bow West contacted me over the festive period to complain that their bins hadn’t been collected for weeks at a time. I submitted a formal complaint on their behalf and I’ve now had a response from the council.
Here is their response in full:
“Thank you for your recent complaint received on 6 March 2025 regarding Waste collection services over festive period. I am sorry to learn of the issues raised.
I have investigated all your concerns under Stage 1 of the Corporate Complaints Procedure and I can now provide you with my findings.
It is clear from the correspondence you received from your constituents that there were issues with collections in the Bow area and this is disappointing. That said, over the Christmas and New Year period, collection delays routinely occur due to public holidays and the increase in waste generated. As a result collections are rescheduled and take place later than they would do during the year. As a service we do not know until the time of collection how much waste will come out, however significantly increased levels of waste, as happened in this case, lead to further delays.
Over the last Christmas and New Year period we experienced an increase in waste in the region of 40% and this slowed collection productivity resulting in managers having to reschedule work depending on the progress each day. Looking at your constituents’ comments , it would appear that the collections in Bow were not managed as well as they could have been and I apologise for that. The service is changing and in future we will be moving to carrying out scheduled waste collections on public holidays, which should eliminate delays. That said we still have someway to go in resolving outstanding contractual arrangements and the contractual changes to workforce terms and conditions of employment will take some time to get agreement on.
In relation to the specific questions you have asked, my response is as follows:
Q1) What was the miscommunication between the manager and staff which led to this missed service?
The delay in delivering the services was due to the public holidays and the increase in waste due to the time of year. As a result this slowed the progress of the crews. I accept that managers should have been aware of the need to prioritise those streets that had not received a collection since before Christmas and this matter is being addressed with those responsible for delivering the service.
Q2 )What accountability is there within the team that this kind of thing won’t happen again?
As you know there is a new Head of Waste Services and although he is here on an interim basis, he is tackling poor work performance of crews and managers. As a result the service has improved significantly over the last 12 months and official statistics show a 99.6% first time rate for scheduled collections. The crews are also now receiving toolbox talks and further training generally , focusing on performance. Any poor work performance is being dealt with formally and operatives and managers are being taken through the council’s performance management process, if they do not meet the required performance standard.
Q3) – Why did it take so long for the issue to be identified?
I accept that in some cases the issues took longer to rectify than I expected, however some of the delay related to collections that had been rescheduled over the Christmas period and therefore the actual true extent of the issues is difficult to gauge. Nevertheless I accept that the performance in Bow did not meet the required standard and I apologise for that.
Arrangements are now in place to digitalise the work of each crew , so that performance issues can be picked up sooner. What this means is that as each crew completes the work in each street on their beat, the information is send instantaneously to the back office. Crews enter details of any issues at a particular location or address that prevents them from providing the scheduled service and this information is then collated and arrangements made to rectify the situation.
The system was in place in December, but not fully functional. Its now operating fully and we will be able to use the data to monitor performance of our workforce and managers going forward and to deal with issues promptly, rather than have delays occur as they did in Bow over Christmas.
Despite the issues your constituents experienced in December the performance of the service overall , during the Christmas period , went far better than in previous years. Official data shows this and the number of emails received from residents complaining about the service was substantially down on previous years as well.
I fully understand your concerns and have taken onboard your constituent’s comments regarding the service delivered. The service is now making significant progress in implementing new operating arrangements, combining this with the use of technology. All staff , officers and manual workers are being held accountable for their work performance and I will ensure that managers monitor the Bow area over future holiday periods, to ensure no repetition of the issues experienced over Christmas.”
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