£24k probe into bins chaos – but not for public’s eyes
AT LEAST PART OF REPORT ON SERCO CONTRACT WILL BE PRIVATE
DISTRICT councillors have agreed to spend more than £24,000 investigating Serco’s handling of its “failing” multi-million-pound bin collection contract.
Meanwhile, at least part of the investigation report may be kept private and away from the eyes of the public who called for the review.
At a meeting last week, Derbyshire Dales District Council appointed an independent chairman to oversee the investigation.
Allen Graham, a former chief executive of Rushcliffe Borough Council in Nottinghamshire, has been appointed to the role and will have full control over the scope of the review.
Paul Wilson, chief executive of the district council, said this could include speaking to Dales refuse collection staff, if it was found to be necessary.
Overall, the council is set to spend £24,400 on the bin collection contract investigation with £12,500 set to be spent on Recircle Consulting to carry out the review and £11,900 for Mr Graham and his company Circling Squares Ltd to lead it.
An investigation report will be written by late December and then debated by the council’s community and environment committee in January.
Mr Wilson sought to assure councillors that while chief executive at Rushcliffe, the authority traded hands between political parties but said that he had not asked and did not intend to ask those interviewed, including Mr Allen, for the role of independent chair, about their political allegiance.
Cllr Garry Purdy, leader of the district council, said political allegiance was not relevant and said if the authority were to ask about that topic “we may as well ask him which football team he supports too”.
He said it was important that residents see that the issues with bin collections in the district were to be investigated and would be moving forward “as quickly as possible”.
A report on the next steps for the investigation lays out that information used as part of the review would be treated as “exempt and confidential” due to commercial sensitivity.
It says: “If such information were to enter the public domain, it would introduce the risk of legal challenge to the council from Serco which would likely result in additional monies being spent on legal action rather than being used to deliver services.”
It has asked councilors to be “mindful” of this ahead of the publication of the final investigation report in January.
The report says: “Officers anticipate that the council will publish the papers in accordance with the Access to Information Rules and any exemptions from publication will be made in accordance with paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972.”
This infers that at least part of the final report will be kept private and not published in public for residents to have full oversight, due to the inclusion of “information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person”.
More than 700 people had signed a petition calling for an inquiry into the contract, with a debate tabled by Cllrs Paul Cruise and Colin Swindell also pushing for a full inquiry.
This debate on October 14 saw councillors approve a full investigation into Serco’s “failed” management of its £3.1 million per year bin collection contract in the Dales.
The initial budget for this investigation was £20,000 and has now been expanded.
The investigation comes after just one year of the new contract between Serco and the district council.
That first year has seen hundreds of thousands of missed collections and scrapped garden waste, food waste and excess recycling pickups – with new reports of “waste blowing down the street” and “awful smells” raised by councillors in last month’s meeting.
If such information were to enter the public domain, it would introduce the risk of legal challenge.
Report