Call for immediate action following waste collection issues UPDATED

[Cookham Webmaster]

The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead is bitterly disappointed in the waste and recycling collections service provided by Serco and is calling for immediate action to be taken.

Senior council officers held talks with Serco’s senior management this week to make it clear that the level of service has been unacceptable, and a drastic improvement is required immediately.

Councillor David Coppinger, lead member for waste, planning and Maidenhead, said: “We are incredibly disappointed in the level of service that has been provided since the return of weekly collections and insist that urgent plans are put in place to complete the rounds more efficiently, as the delays are unacceptable for our residents.

“We have agreed with Serco that additional vehicles and crew will be in operation this week to address the temporary backlog. Those roads that have been missed will be collected as follows:
 
Bins not collected on Monday 7 September will be collected on Monday 14 September. Reasonable levels of excess waste at the side of bins will be accepted if necessary

Bins not collected between Tuesday 8 and Friday 11 September will be collected on either Saturday 12 or Sunday 13 September
Households that have experienced multiple missed collections will have their waste collected by the end of this week so please leave your bins out in readiness
Individual missed bins need to be reported via the council website and will be collected as soon as possible: https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/home/environment-and-waste/recycling-and-rubbish/report-missed-bin.
 
“We’re committed to providing an effective weekly collection service to our residents and will work with Serco to review the current routes and make adjustments so that these issues do not continue in the future but we do need them to make the changes to their business in order for this to be resolved.

“I know that the crews on the ground are working as hard as they can and with many of them living in the borough, they want to make sure they provide a good service. I am urging their management team to look into the arrangements to make sure they provide the crews what they need to collect our residents’ bins.

“I would like to offer our apologies to residents for any disruption they may have experienced, but reassure them that we are working hard to improve the service. I’d also like to thank our call centre staff who have been supporting residents throughout the disruption for their Herculean effort.”

If you experience a missed collection, please continue to report this to us online at: https://www.rbwm.gov.uk/home/environment-and-waste/recycling-and-rubbish/report-missed-bin as it will help us to help Serco improve the service.

[aj]

SERCO - Slow Erratic Rubbish Collection Operation

[Bagheera]

Given that Serco was found guilty of fraud in July last year, what due diligence was carried out on them before awarding them the contract to collect our refuse?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/serco-fine-electronic-tagging-scandal-overcharging-government-a8985801.html

[Cat]

This failure to collect house waste is nothing short of a disgrace.
We are in the middle of a pandemic that is approaching national lockdown levels and hygiene is vital to the health of all.
Filthy bins that are starting to smell in this hot weather is not reassuring.
Criticism of SERCO's track record is valid as is the disbelief of many as to why the contract was therefore still awarded.
But that doesn't get us anywhere, understandable though it is.
The situation is not changing, it is not improving.
The question now is:
What are our councillors going to do about it? What are they doing about it?
And as a community, are we lobbying them, as well as reporting the failure of collection each week?
We are paying for this service. It is not being provided.

[Bagheera]

Our bins STILL have not been emptied although some people seem to have had their recycling bins emptied today.


My suggestion is that as many as possible of us send an email to the RBWM managing director Duncan.Sharkey@RBWM.gov.uk making clear that you wish to make a formal complaint about continued poor service.  Make clear that SERCO is acting as the Royal Borough's agent so the Royal Borough is responsible.

Also make clear that you will take the matter to the Local Government Ombudsman if necessary.

This may sound harsh but so far we are getting just hand wringing and expreseeions of "bitter disappointment".

[Roger]

This appeared in the FT recently, Serco tops UK outsourcers for Covid-19 contracts. They must have incredibly good salesmen.

[Cat]

Here is the response that I received from Duncan Sharkey. His response was immediate and swift but not sure if a solution is actually in place:


"Thank you for your email. I’m really sorry about the quality of service people are receiving right now.

 

There aren’t any ‘good’ excuses to explain this in terms of broken down vehicles or similar.

 

What has happened is that the new rounds Serco introduced aren’t properly balanced and this means that the impact of and catch up from Tuesdays and Fridays has destabilised the entire system.

 

There aren’t any easy solutions to this but we have been working closely with Serco help them recover the situation. We’ve seen better collection rates across Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays last week but even then there are problems with properties (and roads) not properly assigned to a round.

 

The target for this week is that they complete all of the scheduled rounds over Monday to Saturday and resolve any issues with repeated missed collections.

 

There will always be missed bins but we’ve set tight targets for this in the contract and we expect in the near future Serco to be back operating within those parameters.

 

I apologise again for the poor service we’re offering, we are doing all we can to resolve it.

 

Regards

 

 

Duncan Sharkey"

[Watchman]

Apologies, no matter how sincere, do not get bins emptied nor do they keep vermin away from the piles of rubbish
amassed as a consequence.

What I cannot understand is why Serco were allowed to alter the rounds and collection dates from the original
tried and tested system employed by the previous incumbents of refuse collection.

Why were they allowed to dissect, reorganise and basically cock-up the existing system -
which brings up the old adage - If it ain't broke, why the hell try fixing it??

Will we, as residents who suffer this ridiculous mess-up with bin collection be offered a rebate on next year's community charge?
Don't hold your breath folks.

[aj]

We're dealing with a company that was found guilty of defrauding the Ministry of Justice and was fined something in the region of £20 million not too long ago. So I wouldn't go holding my breath (except around the uncollected bins of course) that they will be much vexed by RBWM being miffed with them.

[Bagheera]

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/serco-ceo-s-lockdown-breaking-family-trip

[Cat]

Blue bins emptied this morning but this may be a damage limitation exercise i.e. clear the backlog, and buy time where the complaints and the SERCO contract is concerned.
Or of course it might mean that normal service will be resumed from now on in.
We shall see.

[Bagheera]

Recycling bins missed today!

[Cat]

As mentioned to Mr Duncan Sharkey, SERCO is making a fool out of RBWM and the residents who pay for this service.
Shame on the council for giving the contract to an organisation who has a public record of unbelievable incompetence.

[Bagheera]

Ooh look the twitter account of Serco's CEO


https://twitter.com/rsoames

[Cat]

Following another long and tedious exchange of emails between myself and some poor administrator at RBWM Strategy and Commissioning, this is the final outcome (for the moment):

Dear ......

Thank you for your email.  Please can you kindly keep the excess waste in sacks and these can be presented with the bins.

Regards

The backdrop to this saga is that I was claiming for a garden waste bag that I purchased so as to have somewhere to store our excess recycling while waiting for our bins to be emptied.

It doesn't look like I'll get my money back but I now have permission to leave out extra rubbish bags.

What could possibly go wrong!!