Lets talk ‘rubbish’

Local authorities provide a group of services that known as ‘environmental services’. These services are perceived to be the most difficult to manage. The service group consists of waste management and recycling, street cleansing, street lighting, highways maintenance, parks and gardens, transport planning, parking services, CCTV, planning and control and some aspects of regeneration.

Inspection reports provided by the Audit Commission under the their Best Value inspections regime show that these services are not the most successfully managed. These services have often brought down the overall performance ratings of councils. Waste management and recycling remains a major area of concern. Why is waste management a problem?

There a number of distinct factors and more will be added over the next few weeks:

1. Waste management is a highly visible service and policy makers and politicians see it as a critical service
2. These services are high cost, capital intensive and require careful asset planning and management. Service managers have little or no control over strategic planning; the reasons vary.
3. Waste management and recycling is driven by tight time schedules and failure is not an option.
4. Waste management cannot be run by councils on their own. They must work with other local agencies and both the private and voluntary sector
5. Waste management poses some of the most significant challenges for customer consultation, handling complaints and dealing with the fallout.
6. Service providers often have to face the flak created by contractors
7. Many services are run by narrow minded functionalists, mostly engineers who see the technical logistics as more challenging than business modelling and planning
8. Performance management may be weak and service providers do not collect the performance indicators voluntarily
9. There is a serious skills gap – middle managers and customer facing staff need training and development but more courses is not the answer
10. Policy makers have not invested in strategic planning and taken a long-term view in most cases.

Lets stop here but return to each of the above issues in the future.  Do you want to talk ‘rubbish’ as well? Why not write to me privately if you do not want to leave a comment. Confidentiality is guaranteed. Please write to me at kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com

We also have a Top Prize section where the most significant service failures experienced by readers will be featured. It is also important to balance this by featuring the best examples of action taken to improve the service. Note: where ‘naming and shaming’ is involved we reserve our right to check first with service providers.