Two months ago, East Cambs Street Scene introduced new refuse collection rounds promising to “improve service efficiency for residents and reduce carbon emissions”. The experience of many residents has been very different with repeated missed collections, with days and on some occasions weeks without a collection. Having your wheelie bin emptied and black bins collected on time is a basic service that every council needs to get right. Why has it gone so badly wrong in East Cambridgeshire?

There are a series of problems that have come to a head in the past few weeks affecting East Cambs Street Scene (ECSS), the trading company set up by East Cambs District Council several years ago to bring refuse collection in-house. First there is the HGV driver shortage with another driver resigning recently. Second there is the poorly executed round reconfiguration. Third there is the timing of the round reconfiguration. Finally there is the morale issue first reported last autumn in the Ely Standard and related staff absences.

HGC Driver Shortage
The HGV driver shortage is a well known issue with fewer drivers from abroad willing to come to the UK. In response to drivers leaving, ECSS has started to train a couple of loaders as drivers but this isn’t a short term fix and even when complete there is the risk that up-skilled staff are more likely to explore other opportunities once qualified. The driver shortage already resulted in the suspension of green bin collections in December 2021 and January 2022.

When staff are in demand and exploring other opportunities it is important to offer a competitive salary. The current HGV driver vacancy with ECSS is advertised at a salary of £23,484. When I researched other opportunities earlier this year a local private waste company were recruiting to a very similar role in East Cambs with a salary of £31,981. A number of other HGV refuse driver jobs could be found paying just over £27,000. I raised this concern with ECSS management back in February.

Poorly Executed Round Reconfiguration
There are a couple of issues which have particularly impacted the execution of the round reconfiguration. The first is poor communication to crews who are working on new rounds. Detailed of assisted collections don’t always appear to have been passed on to the new crews and those crews are not familiar with longstanding local arrangements as to where bins and bags are usually left for collection. This has then created additional work for crews as residents have reported missed collections which need to be addressed. 

The second issue is that the initial round reconfiguration wasn’t properly balanced, requiring 950 homes to have their collection days changed again. In my view a significant contributor to this is that ECSS doesn’t use widely available software tools designed to plan collection rounds based on geocoded mapping of properties and planning of routes. These software tools can also be used to direct vehicles on their routes, a little like a satnav, and track when streets have been missed. In contrast in the cab ECSS crews rely entirely on pen and paper.

Poorly Timed Round Reconfiguration
Introducing the round reconfiguration at the end of March meant that we were soon into a seven week period with five bank holidays, the first time so many bank holidays have been packed into such a short period in the calendar.  Crews usually work Monday to Friday with some Saturday working reserved to catch up for bank holidays.

I raise concerns about the timing with ECDC and ECSS management in February, six weeks before the changes were due to be introduced. With so many bank holidays, five Saturdays over a seven-week period had to be allocated to planned work, removing the ability to use Saturdays to catch up on missed collections. With the large number of missed collections to address this has meant some crews having to work bank holidays to try to catch up.

Staff Morale Concerns
In late October last year the Ely Standard ran a report https://www.elystandard.co.uk/news/local-council/binmen-in-revolt-in-east-cambs-8443354 about whistle-blowers within the refuse service having spoken of an escalating crisis with staff shortages, no pay rise, diminishing morale and a culture of bullying. These were serious and worrying allegations, and at our request my colleagues and I were briefed by management who said they had no record of concerns.

In our briefing we emphasised our concerns about the Ely Standard story and the need to take effective action to determine the extent of the problem. One recommendation I proposed was to run an anonymous ‘pulse’ survey of staff. Such surveys need to be anonymous to give an accurate picture of staff morale. As far as I am aware no such survey has been run. Until a proper assessment of the issues is made an effective plan to resolve them cannot be developed. In the meantime unaddressed issues of morale affect productivity and can also be reflected in higher than usual sickness absences. The impacts on morale can be exacerbated when service changes aren’t going well and unplanned additional work is needed.

It’s Street Cleansing As Well
East Cambs Street Scene are also response for providing a street cleansing service, emptying litter bins and dog bins, clearing away fly tipping and removing graffiti. The latest performance report due to go to the council’s Operational Services Committee shows that this aspect of the service is falling a very long way below the agreed targets.

Urgent Action Is Needed
East Cambs Street Scene has been hit by a perfect storm of events causing performance to plummet and a failure to deliver the services residents expect. We can no longer wait for another week or two in the hope that things will improve, urgent action is needed.

East Cambs District Council need to request an extraordinary meeting of the ECSS Board and to call on its directors to agree a plan of action with ECSS management to resolve the current issues. As a minimum that plan of action should include:

1. Urgent steps to provide additional management support to ECSS, either through a secondment from ECDC or by bringing in external refuse management expertise

2. Additional short term refuse collection capacity through contractors or other means to enable catch-up on the growing list of missed collections to avoid all of the burden falling on existing crews

3. A review of arrangements in place to communicate assisted collections and other specific round details to crews operating new rounds

4. A review of HGV driver salaries, including benchmarking with similar roles at other employers to determine whether current salaries are at appropriate market rates

5. An anonymous staff ‘pulse’ survey to assess whether staff morale issues reported last year remain and are widespread or have been addressed

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