City to save £72m as private firm lined up to empty bins
THE council is to save almost £72 million as part of a proposed shake-up that would see more giant communal recycling bins introduced to the Capital’s streets.
A council report published today has revealed that private firm Enterprise has been lined up as “preferred bidder” to take over a raft of council environmental services.
The company, which operates similar contracts in Liverpool and London’s Islington, plans to save the council £71.6m over the seven-year contract, which councillors will be asked to sign off next week.
It can also face financial penalties if it does not achieve tough targets on its performance.
Residents in houses will be given new recycling wheelie bins, into which they can put all their paper, plastic, cans, glass and cardboard.
People in flats will get more multi-use, on-street recycling bins, in order to encourage them not to send waste to landfill.
Mark Turley, director of the services for communities department, said: “We have here a very exciting outcome that will go before councillors for a decision next Thursday.
“I’m really pleased because we have negotiated an exciting opportunity to increase recycling significantly, improve cleanliness on our streets and improve our parks.
“And you can add in the opportunity to do that while making significant savings.”
A roll-out of food waste collections, already planned by the council, will go ahead, with food waste and garden waste being the only other recycling collections that are not within one container.
Collections will take place every week but will alternate between recycling and residual waste, meaning that normal waste collections will become fortnightly.
The year-on-year savings that the Enterprise bid will make for the council start at £5m a year initially before rising to £12m per year from the fourth year.
The company scored better than a bid by a joint venture of Kier and Shanks.
Under the agreement, the 800 staff affected by the changes, including the bin men who have been on a “work-to-rule” for more than two years, will transfer to Enterprise on the same terms and conditions.
However, Mr Turley admitted that there would be job losses further down the line.
He said: “The 800 are guaranteed to transfer over, but such is the [economic] position they are not guaranteed to be there forever, but that would have been the case anyway.”
The contract would be concluded with Enterprise by the end of November and the arrangements would become operational between January and the end of February 2012.
Alasdair Slessor, Enterprise’s operations director, said: “We look forward to welcoming the team into the new organisation and to harnessing their skills.”
Council leader Cllr Jenny Dawe, said: “I appreciate that this is a difficult time for staff. It is important to emphasise that no decision has been taken on the proposal at this stage.”
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Comments
There are 30 comments to this article
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johnyyyy50
Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 01:34 PMI live at the south side off edinburgh and have seen many off the bin men working away in all weathers and working at a good pace pulling bins back and forward across roads doing a good job and very helpful at times and a few off these guys are in there 50s and older so It would be a pity to see these guys loosing wages and even there jobs the private company are just in it for the profit ie big pay packets for the bosses. I would hope at least that these guys who have worked hard and in there 50s and over would get some sort off early release or pensioned off and make way for younger men to take over as it is a younger mans job. and a job that I would not like to do. sometimes I feel that this must be a joke seeing young men doing the easy job picking up litter and the older men on the bins running about working just does not make sense to me. but I would no be happy with a private company doing my bins.
Ray Merrall
Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 10:03 AMAll these announcements from Dawe over the past week, with her kindly grandmotherley photshopped smile pasted at the top of the article. Could there be an election due soon - next May perhaps? 'Tis a pity she hasn't taken as much care over the budget over the past 4 years - deficit from £90 million to £1.5 billion must be some sort of record. Anyone check the Guinness book of records to check or to see if we can get a certificate for our beloved leaderene?
nickcgardner
Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 09:50 AMTo quote the report, one risk of keeping services inhouse is "limited financial certainty as savings not contractually underpinned". In other words the Council officials do not trust themselves to be able to run services efficiently. Much better punish the people of Edinburgh by privatising their services than employ officials who can manage the City and elect Councillors who can manage the officials.
judgedredd777
Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 12:23 AMWhere there is "Muck" there is "Money" but only for the "Mucker". That`s the three "M`s"in waste disposal Turley, and you are a waste of space.
doojas
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 08:30 PMIf the council are going to save 72 mill over the next 10 years. Ask Turrley how much he has spent beating 300 binmen into the ground over the last two and a half years,The cost to the public purse was 32 mill not including what they had to lay out in lawyers fees.woe all of a sudden Enterprise are going to come in and do what the council cannot do,put more euro bins on the street,do fortnightly collections,recycle more waste,i am stupid or are these not things that should be part of our service anyway.these things are nothing to do with the workforce this is ecc not doing thier duty to the public.Its time for this council to bow out before we have no city left,and dont let Mark Turley fool you he will be delighted to go because he is only doing what he is doing so he can walk away with the golden handshake and the big wedge.
Artemis
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 08:27 PMGiven the mess the council made of the Care & Support tender, and the ongoing trams disaster, does anyone really trust them to set up contracts that will benefit the taxpayer more than the private company? Really? We should be making it very clear to our councillors that this is not what the public want and they must not do this.
judgedredd777
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 07:16 PMCity to save £72m as private firm lined up to empty bins and your pockets. More brown envelopes me thinks. If this is the case that the Bin Services are going to be "Outsourced" they will have no more further use for Mark Turley. Shove him in a bin and padlock the lid and dispose without benefitspayoff`s or pensions. But pay the Landfill Tax, it would be worth it just to save the amount of money he has wasted over the last couple of years.
Dennisarowe
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 07:10 PMYet another massive savings claim for what in essence is the same service or As claimed an improved service? As with many of these contracts eg trams,firms come in with low offers ,massive savings claims and then claim additional fees for services "not covered by the contract". It will certainly be interesting to audit this contract in a couple of years time to see if there are actually any savings which I doubt there will be.
gordonS
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 06:50 PM15,well said Keyser Soze,agree with your comments,most of the street cleaners have tunnel vision too,never seem to do the job right,usually leave most of the litter behind them,that's when they are not sitting in the vehicle watching one of them emptying a bin.
Jams
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 06:37 PMCouncil leader Cllr Jenny Dawe, said "meaningless waffle"
JumboLumbo
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 06:21 PMCan we get the names of those who draft the contract published, please? And a list of signatories as well.
keyser soze
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 05:49 PM#17...Doctor. I am fully aware that it is not just street cleaners but a whole range of jobs. However, it is the street cleaners whose "working methods" are the most noticable to both residents and visitors. I totally agree with your comment regarding the salaries of management and would hope that they are not transferred or redeployed within the council. Having dealt with them on countless occasions, they are the real problem the entire Consumers Services Dept.has. It started with Mike Drewry and has continued with Mark Turley, both part of Tom Aitchison's cabal.
gus1940
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 05:37 PMCan anybody explain why my bin was emptied at 8.15 in the evening this week?
Doctor Who?
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 04:54 PMKeyser You seem to think that there are 800 street cleaner jobs being privitised. The figure includes gardeners and refuse collectors. You also say "up until a few years ago" is that when the council decided to cut manual workers wages by up to 33% while giving themselves substancial wage increases. If you think that would not impact on an individuals performance then you know nothing about motivation.
blueboy1113
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 04:29 PMwell,if 800 manual staff are to be taken under the wing of privatisation,in a bid to save us,edinburgh tax-payers,money,what happens to all the supervisory and management staff that have been plundering the public purse under the guise of "administration".surely even this council cannot conjour-up new jobs for these people after promising so much savings by selling off the services they are legally obliged to provide fo us!
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