Agenda item

The committee to receive a presentation on the street cleansing service and performance.

A document is attached setting out the process for calculating the KPI results.

The Contract Manager (Parks and Street Cleansing) introduced the item noting that this was the tenth year of the contract with Veolia to deliver the council’s street cleansing function, alongside a number of other services.

The committee received a presentation delivered by Nick Graham from Veolia. The presentation covered the surveying process, trends, challenges and initiatives.

Following the presentation, the committee discussed the following:

·                 Graffiti on private property which can be removed by the team with the landowner’s permission, noting that certain incidences would require specialist contractors.

·                 The prioritisation of the 25 roads which underwent a deep clean each year. This was a partnership initiative with the county council and county councillors who contributed funding and engaged with ward councillors around suitable roads. Some roads were likely to require a deep clean at more frequent intervals than others.

·                 The cycle of road surveys of certain wards in each quarter. The process provided a snapshot of the overall cleanliness and the team used their local knowledge about when and where different issues arose. It also provided for ongoing benchmarking. Ten percent of the surveys were undertaken with the council and Veolia and the Portfolio Holder reported that it was an exacting process.

·                 The council’s use of the former national N195 indicator as the basis of the KPI. The Office for Local Government would be bringing back some national performance indicators for the sector and this was a contractual KPI with a sound methodology which allowed for tracking performance over time.  There were other indicators that were used elsewhere but this one worked well in Watford. It could be set to any standard and provided rigour in the system.

·                 Officers noted the suggestion around removing the high-speed roads from the KPI calculations given the number in the borough and the decision to reduce cleansing frequency. This had been considered but was being included for the time being to allow for benchmarking and with the comments reflecting the new service provision levels.

·                 Street cleansing hotspots were created through reporting issues which provided a heat map of identified issues. These were reviewed frequently by Veolia and used to inform schedules.

·                 Specific issues identified which were related to certain businesses were reported to the council’s Environmental Health team who would raise concerns with them directly. It was noted that licensing reviews had been brought against offending licensed premises in the past.

·                 Veolia were cognizant of peaks in rubbish related to seasonal trends and activities in the parks and additional staff and larger bins were made available as required. Callowland Recreation Ground was being kept under review as usage was increasing.

·                 Veolia and the council agreed a communications plan and there were regular social media posts around litter and the availability of community litter picking kits. Litter would feature more prominently in the next plan. The education team from Veolia who visited schools had an excellent programme and had been nominated for awards for their work.

·                 The nature of litter would change over the next few years with the introduction of deposit return schemes and extended producer responsibility as well as the ban on single-use plastics.

The committee agreed that they would support an increased focus on litter in the forthcoming communications plan.

RESOLVED –

1.               that the committee supports the greater emphasis on messaging around litter.

2.               that the presentation be noted.