Management failings blamed for troubled waste collection rollout

Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

A council has said management shortcomings contributed to problems with the rollout of new waste and recycling collections.

The controversial North Powys Bulking Facility in Abermule was at the centre of the issues with the new collection roll-out in Montgomeryshire.

The Abermule facility is the depot for the refuse and recycling vehicles and teams that cover what the council have dubbed north Powys.

An independent review into the shambolic roll out of new collections routes in March highlighted that improvements are needed to the management of Abermule.

At a joint meeting of Powys County Council’s Governance and Audit Committee and Economy, Residents and Communities (ERC) scrutiny committee on Wednesday, July 15, councillors and lay independent members probed the reasons why the change in collection routes had experienced issues.

Waste and recycling senior manager Ashley Collins explained that north Powys had experienced problems with recruiting refuse collectors and drivers a couple of years ago and the new collection routes had “opened up cracks” and  re-highlighted these issues.

Mr Collins said: “There were two supervisors in the Abermule depot and recruited another one at the end of last year.

“There were  three supervisors when we started the routes roll out and not long after two of them went off sick.

“We did struggle to cover that area, and we drafted in supervisors from other depots to help out.

“We were also aware that the area management was stretched as we had one manager for Brecon and one for the mid and north.

“So, to more align with the highways model we have on a 12-month secondment put in an additional manager in the north to balance the workload.”

“That’s one of the reasons why things have improved.”

He added that staff had also been seconded in Abermule to cover the supervisor roles.

Mr Collins was hopeful that councillors in the north of Powys had seen improvements in the last few weeks.

He said that the problems were not all: “necessarily route related but it all came at once.”.

Cllr Angela  Davies (Liberal Democrat – Rhayader) said: “Given there were known issues with the northern depot in hindsight that should have been resolved before the roll out?”

Governance and Audit chairwoman and independent lay member Lynne Hamilton who chaired the joint meeting said: “You added a level of complexity and a change programme to an already known under performing and stressed team.

“What account was taken of that risk and vulnerability when judgements were being made on the ongoing roll out.

“Was there ever a situation where perhaps we should not be rolling out because we are at risk of falling over?”

Mr Collins stressed that it was “after” the roll out that the supervisors went off sick.

Mr Collins said:   “Once it was rolled out it was not something we could stop very easily.

“We did prepare probably not enough in terms of management, but it did show shortfalls there.”

The joint committee will produce a number of recommendations so that the council learns lessons for the future.

The Abermule depot has only become fully operation and allowed to take black bin refuse in recent months.

Last December the council’s Planning committee agreed by nine voted to three with two councillors abstaining to allow the black bin waste to be processed at the site.

In doing this the council broke promises made to villagers before the facility was built that it would not take black bin waste.

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