Councillors will be asked to make any declarations of interest in respect of items on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest made by Members in accordance with the code of conduct.

To receive reports on business which in the opinion of the Chair, should be brought forward for urgent consideration.

There were no items of Chair’s urgent business.

The committee will consider the decision called in by Councillors Mrs Maddi Bridgeman, Caron and Mrs Beer.

Presentation of case for call-in

Councillor Mrs Beer, Councillor Carson and Councillor Mrs Bridgeman, presented their case and explained the reasons why they considered the decision needed to be reviewed –

·         Residents had not had to previously register online for garden waste collection and would alienate residents who didn’t have access to computers or who have difficulties using one;

·         It was not clear when garden waste was being collected and would cause confusion among residents as days for collection had changed several times over the years with no clear communication;

·         Heard good things about in cab technology and question why data for registration had not been collected by this technology instead of placing the burden on the homeowner;

·         Had residents who require assisted collection i.e. elderly and people with disabilities been considered;

·         How would the crews keep up with the ever changing data, people moving houses or people passing away; this would potentially lead to unregistered bags being left;

·         Thought the Labour pledge was to improve collection of waste which was below the national average but this new registration process could lead to more people using their brown bin for garden waste and fly tipping;

·         Whether residents had registered or not crews will have to travel down every street to collect one or two bags. This defeated the object of saving fuel;

·         Would there be a costly postal exercise to update residents who didn’t have access to emails;

·         The length of time it could take a resident to be added to a collection round once registered on time, it was stated it could take up to one month;

·         Every household would need to register every year else the data would not be up to date, this would mean the data would be ever changing for the crews;

·         This would place additional pressure on the customer service teams who would have to deal with calls regarding missed garden waste collections, placing more stress on staff;

Councillor Hendy joined the meeting part way through this item

·         Disappointed that the data for the report was based on the 2011 census which is eight years out of date;

·         Contacted the Electoral Services team to see how residents communicate with the Council and was told less than a third of residents use online; this would mean using online registration would preclude two thirds of the population.

·         This shift to online registration doesn’t sit well with the Corporate Plan areas Fairness and Democracy;

·         Will be many weeks where residents don’t put waste out and the lorry’s will be driving down streets still looking for bags

·         What would be the policy for members of the public who left out garden waste for collection and had not previously registered;

Decision-maker response

Councillor Dann, Philip Robinson (Service Lead for Street Scene and waste) and Faye Hambleton (Service Director for Customer Services and Service Centre) explained the reasons why the decision was taken and gave their response to the call-in –

·         Started to look at garden waste as it was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 82.