Bin refuse furore by union boss
Changes to bin collections and a rejig of opening times at recycling centres is an exercise in putting votes before jobs, a union leader claimed.
Tom Carr-Pollock, branch secretary of the GMB told councillors at an Environment Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel meeting on Tuesday that charging for brown bins at £25 a time would bring in returns in excess of £1.25m, eliminating the need for cuts.
Instead, the council plans to cut or redeploy jobs from bin collection crews and staffing at the five recycling centres. Councillors agreed earlier this year not to go down the route of charging for brown bins and are now looking at collecting food waste and garden waste together twice and month in a bid to save money.
Mr Carr- Pollock told the PDSP: “Trade unions are very, very disappointed especially now it seems that councilors may have been misled over the job implications. These changes amount to Labour putting votes before jobs.”
He asked David Goodenough, Waste Services Manager, whether West Lothian in maintaining five recycling sites was “overkill” considering Edinburgh has only two operational sites.
He suggested a reduction to two in West Lothian would protect jobs and solve the need for redeployment or potential job losses where there were no suitable posts left.
A West Lothian Council spokesperson said: “The council is currently considering savings to bridge an estimated budget gap of £65 million over the next five years. This is as a result of Scottish Government funding not being enough to meet increased costs faced by the council for our growing young and older populations in particular.
“The level of savings required, following 10 years of reducing council budgets, means that difficult decisions are going to have to be made to allow us to balance the budget and continue to deliver essential services for local residents.
“Charging for brown bins was ruled out by councillors when the budget was set February 2018. Our preliminary work suggested potential savings were to have been less than the £1.25 million suggested due to assumptions made about potential uptake of the service.
“We also refute any suggestion councillors were misled when setting the budget. Councillors were provided with both extensive committee papers and verbal briefing from officers at committee, to allow them to make decisions based on the best information available at the time.”