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Partnerships

Joint Working and Efciency GainsDr. Adam Read and Sarahjane Widdowson

The enTire globe is suering aT The hands

o the worst recession to hit since the 1940s, and this

is not only a concern or the nancial sector and people

with savings and investments, but it is also a major

worry or municipal authorities who are charged

with delivering ront line services that underpin our

modern way o lie—policing, health care, schooling

and, o course, waste management.

In October 2010, the UK Government announced

a undamental spending review outlining how they

were going to address public sector unding and helpthe economy grow. This has proven to be the biggest

shockwave to hit local waste management services

since the EU Landll Directive was launched in 1999

and single-handedly led to the widespread adoption o 

curbside recycling programs and innovative residual

waste treatment solutions to divert organic waste

rom landlls. This new shockwave has had a similar

impact on challenging municipal authorities to think

about the eciency o the services that they oer,

prioritize the services delivered and encourage greater

joint working with neighboring municipalities to

deliver the eciency improvements required to satisy

the current government unding ramework.

Budget CutsAcross the UK, we are looking at a 28 percent cut

in local municipal grants rom Central Government,

equivalent to an overall 15 percent cut in municipal

budgets, along with a predicted 30 percent cut in capital

spending programs. Waste management remains the

single largest contract led by many municipalities—

whether or collection and recycling or treatment and

disposal—and as such, waste management has been

targeted or an overhaul in terms o local priorities,

service design and implementation. Clearly, these are

challenging times or all o us involved in municipal

waste management and challenging times requireinnovative solutions. The UK Government has limited

municipal budgets rom April 2011 and authorities

across the country have been let to generate their own

ideas and realize these savings over a three-year period.

The last ve months have since brought on an

unheralded amount o activity involving community

stakeholders, budget holders and ocers to look at the

options available, oten with the help o independent

consultants who can comment on eciency options

and delivery alternatives rom a wider perspective.

In some places, municipal authorities must save 50

percent o their operating budgets over the next three

years. Birmingham City Council (the UK’s largest

municipal authority) announced recently that 7,000

sta would be going in a bid to save £300 million per

annum (about $489 million), while Blackburn Council

will be cutting 1,000 jobs and Wakeeld Council will

be cutting their workorce by 10 percent. Job losses

such as these aren’t simply trimming measures wheredepartments are streamlining perceived ‘nice to have’

positions; these cuts (in scale and breadth) will require

wholesale restructuring o departments and reductions

in ront line services such as waste collection and

recycling. A hash reality or those o us involved in

delivering waste-related services, but one that cannot

be ignored, and perhaps one we should be embracing

as it aords us with the opportunity to critically review

our service design, perormance and programming.

Balancing Budget with ServiceDicult decisions about priorities and budget

allocations will need to be made, and dicult decisions

Cd culbl cc cl,UK udcu d d fdc-ld fcc ll d  joint worKing in the

UK waste managementseCtor over the nexttwo years.

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need dicult questions to be asked about

current policies, priorities and services. This

will only be achieved through a dedication toinormed analysis and data collection and by

thinking dierently about how services are

designed and delivered—partnerships and

joint working are no longer a nice idea, they

are a must have i municipal services are to

continue to be delivered in a way that our

residents recognize and understand.

So how are we trying to balance these

massive budget cuts with the need to deliverever better ront line waste and recycling

services that meet the requirements o 

residents, and comply with the added pressure

o the UK government’s localism agenda?

The rst step is benchmarking—analyzing

your service against the best authorities or

your neighbors to see how your perormance

compares to theirs. But you need to be brave

and consider all aspects o your services,

both ront line and back room sta. Don’t

leave this review up to the service manager

as they may be too close to the services to

see the opportunities; get a resh pair o eyes

in to look at all o the aspects that could

be improved—however small. I you nd

savings can be made then you must act upon

them and implement change switly.

Cutting services is not politically pala-

table under any circumstances but given thedevelopment o the localism agenda in the

UK, the need to satisy residents’ needs is

placing additional pressure on what would

otherwise be considered prudent decision

making. Recycling bring banks are seemingly

a bone o contention or many authorities

currently. With the ongoing expansion o 

curbside collection schemes, many bring

banks are not well used by residents, but the

idea o cutting some o them is creating local

uproar in many locations.

Using valuable vehicles and crew to collect

recycling that is oten deposited by bars or

small businesses without payment is adding

to local authority bottom line costs. Many

authorities are looking at a combination o 

rationalization and diversication to solve the

problem.

Retaining banks in the locations whereresidents need services makes sense, but

either removing banks in other locations

or diversiying oerings with textiles, book

banks and Waste Electrical and Electronic

Equipment (WEEE) banks instead o more

traditional dry recyclables can provide

additional material capture without removinga service. Innovation is required to ensure that

rationalization provides service enhancement.

This is an area that will require greater

investment by authorities as they map

materials capture, usage and quality rom

bring sites, re-use centers and the local tip.

Partnerships and Joint Working

In parallel, the partnership agenda hasbeen growing steadily within the UK waste

and recycling sector with many authorities

entering both inormal and ormal

partnerships, oten linked to residual waste

treatment and municipal strategy delivery.

The increasing need to cut budgets over the

last 12 months has catalyzed this activity

and many authorities are now looking at how

services can be delivered more eectively

and at a lower cost by working together.

One o the biggest announcements to date

has been the proposal to share services

between the three London Boroughs o 

Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, as

well as Hammersmith and Fulham. It has

been estimated that administrative savings

alone could be worth between £50 million

(about $81 million) and £100 million ($163

million) per year or a range o servicesincluding waste management. Every service,

rom chie executive and senior directors to

street cleaners and social workers, could be

shared, and under the plans, each authority

would keep its council leaders and local

elected councillors—thus ensuring a local

perspective on strategic decisions.

There are numerous successul examples o 

joint working to look towards or guidance

and evidence to support uture partnership

initiatives. We have seen the development

o partnership working in West Oxordshire

and Cotswold District Councils, which has

resulted in alignment o waste management

services and the development o a Joint

Chie Executive and a senior management

team. Nearby, South Oxordshire and the

Vale o White Horse have a joint waste

service and joint waste services team whichprocured together, but rolled out at dierent

times. Adur and Worthing councils are

delivering a joint waste collection service

to their residents to cut costs and improve

48  WasteAdvantage Magazine May 2011

Jt Wk efccy gThe Surrey Waste Partnership (11 collection

authorities and one disposal authority) has a

successul track record o working together on major

strategy and the procurement o a residual waste

treatment solution. Current budgets totalled £40million (about $65.2 million) per annum, with likely

increases due to rising landfll tax and disposal ees

o £1 million (about $1.6 million) per annum. Given

Central Government budget cuts and increasing

pressure to deliver local savings, the partnership

was keen to identiy how it could determine and

realize urther efciency gains and other benefts

associated with working more closely together. They

commissioned AEA to develop opportunities or

efciency gains or cost savings, rom benchmarkingall o the existing services to major service innovation

and procurement opportunities.

Up to £2 million (about $3.2 million) o savings over

two years were identifed rom the benchmarking

exercise, the majority o which was attributable

to all the 11 collection authorities getting the best

price when they sell their recyclables (a signifcant

range existed even with the same reprocessors), and

using economies o scale when buying new bins,containers and uel. In addition, lessons learned

rom each other on service delivery would ensure

that more efcient crew sizes, container types and

communications messages would be used by all

parties going orward.

 AEA’s work also identifed potential savings

in excess o £15 million (about $24.4 million)

over the next fve years through the alignment o

recycling services (similar collection system in all 11

authorities), common policies on side waste, bulkycollections etc., economies o scale in procuring

new solutions (joint working), and ultimate savings

in disposal costs and taxation. Other opportunities

identifed included a single call center or all the

authorities, identical branding o vehicles, central

communications, sharing o depots and vehicles,

and regional management teams in ‘hubs’ across the

county.

The partnership has recently approved the recom-mendations within the AEA report and are moving

ahead to explore new governance systems to enable

greater joint working, and are jointly procuring

new green waste treatment capacity. Each o the

authorities is also undertaking a detailed benchmark

review o their services and will share best practices

with one another to enable immediate savings to be

achieved.

The partnership has had to put aside political

dierences and concerns about local sovereignty toaddress the bigger issue o budget cuts and service

enhancement. The challenges have helped to bring

the authorities together to fght a bigger cause and

the benefts are now being realized by all.

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quality, while Tamworth and Licheld Districts have a joint service program

that extends beyond waste management and which or waste services alone is

delivering £750,000 (about $1.2 million) per annum in savings because less

vehicles are in use, they have a single depot and there is only one client team.

The Somerset Waste Partnership (several collection authorities and one disposal

authority) is achieving savings o more than £1 million (about $1.6 million) per

annum through alignment o services, sharing o best practice and the ability to buy

and sell as a single entity ensuring better prices or uel, containers and recyclables.

The Hertordshire Waste Partnership (several collection authorities) has ormed a

consortium to sell their recyclables and is generating signicant additional income

when compared to when they acted independently (an additional £5 million [about

$8.1 million] over our years rom the collection and sale o paper alone).

 Joint working can provide many opportunities to improve service eciencies

and can lead to signicant savings (both cashable and non-cashable). Ecienciescan be realized through joint depots, sharing o vehicle feets (thus reducing spares

across the partners), buying together (uels, bins, etc.), sale o recyclables, route

optimization and by having a more attractive portolio when you go to market (size

and logistics). However, many o these savings will be achieved through ‘invest

to save’ activities where investment is required to ully understand the range o 

options available, and short-term spending is not something that many authorities

are currently considering. This could prove to be the fy in the ointment and result

in decisions being wrong in some circumstances as insucient data was available to

inorm the decision-making process—but only time will tell.

The time is now right or a major change in the UK’s approach to joint

working. The scale o budget cuts and the need to enhance local service delivery

will orce authorities to benchmark their services to ensure that they are working

eectively over the next six months. Once this has been done, the emphasis will

shit to considering joint working, shared services, re-alignment o delivery and

potential municipal mergers to ensure that economies o scale are optimized.

Perhaps the recession will have a silver lining ater all—long-term ecient

delivery o waste management services? That can’t be a bad thing! | WA

Dr. Adam Read  is Global Practice Director or AEA’s Resource Efciency and 

Waste Management Practice. He has had more than 17 years o operational experience

both in the UK and overseas, the last 10 in consultancy. Adam leads a team o waste

 and resource management consultants at AEA specializing in resource efciency, product 

design, clean technologies, waste management strategy, recycling service design, technology

 appraisal, procurement, training and behavior change. He can be reached at 07968 707 239 or e-mail adam.read@aeat.co.uk.

Sarahjane Widdowson is a Principal Consultant at AEA specializing in local 

 authority service design, benchmarking, joint working and communications. She has

10 years o sector experience and was ormerly a municipal waste management ofcer 

responsible or recycling service design and delivery. She has also delivered reviews

o waste management service perormance or a number o London Boroughs and has

modelled bring site options in terms o materials capture and expenditure or WRAP on

behal o a number o local authorities. Sarahjane can be reached at +44 (0)7581 621

795 or sarahjane.widdowson@aeat.co.uk.

  WasteAdvantage Magazine May 2011 49

©2011 Waste Advantage Magazine, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted from Waste Advantage Magazine. Contents cannot be reprinted without permission from the publisher.

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