Bins contract penalty clause suspended for three months

THE private firm behind a council’s bin collection “crisis” which saw maggots infesting uncollected waste will not lose one penny of public funds, we can reveal.

A document released following a freedom of information request reveals the penalty clause for poor performance in Kier’s new £82m, seven-year contract with Bridgend county borough council (BCBC) has been suspended for three months.

The performance framework states the suspension, which began from the service start date of June 5, is “to allow the contractor sufficient time to implement and deal with any issues”.

It means the firm cannot be fined for the “chaos” caused by large numbers of missed rubbish and recycling collections during much of June which led to waste, including bags of nappies, sitting on kerbsides for weeks in searing temperatures.

A council spokesman said the framework “is consistent with other waste and recycling contracts of this type, and reflects common industry practice”.

Kier’s managing director Julian Tranter apologised at the time, with council leader Huw David admitting the firm’s performance “is clearly not good enough”.

Around 50 borough, town and community councillors also wrote an open letter to Coun David calling on him to “recognise the crisis that is unfolding” and the “chaos on our streets”.

The level of complaints has since subsided but independent community councillor Martin Williams said nearly two months in “collections are still being missed on a regular basis”.

Yet once the suspension expires the minimum number of penalty points Kier must incur in a month before they face the lowest level fine of £625 is 5,000. Missed residential collections only attract two points per incident – meaning Kier would have to miss 2,500 collections in a single month to be docked money.

The council spokesman said: “The missed collection threshold is not high when set against the fact that the contractor will carry out more than five million collections a year. It also accounts for just one of approximately 70 performance indicators, the penalty points for which are accumulative and which are added together for a final score.”

The performance framework states each missed collection must be “confirmed” before it attracts points – yet does not state how they are confirmed.

The document also states Kier is responsible for reporting its own “performance standard failures” to Bridgend council.

The framework sets out how penalty points can also be incurred for other infractions including safety (up to 500 points per incident), failure to attend calls within the maximum call waiting time (one point per occurrence) and failure to clean up and remove any spilled materials within 20 minutes (10 points).

The maximum amount Kier could lose in a month is £25,000, for which they would have had to accrue more than 30,000 points.

Kier would have to amass 180,000 penalty points or more in six months or 360,000 or more in a year to risk losing the contract.

Coun Williams, the newly-elected chairman of the Change For Bridgend group, who made the freedom of information request, said: “The whole handling of the new recycling regime poses serious questions about how BCBC operates.”

A council spokesman said: “The performance framework...requires the contractor to receive, action and resolve complaints before reporting the process back to the council. The council’s role is to then monitor and audit the process.

“Service change on this scale cannot be implemented without experiencing problems and teething issues, so there are no penalties during the first 12 weeks in order to give the service a sufficient chance to get up and running.

“Similarly, the contractor agrees not to claim against the council during this period, e.g. for dealing with additional waste. This is a common practice that avoids companies having to factor costs into their bids designed to protect them from penalties incurred during the initial launch period.”