Joint Working
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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 [email protected].
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 [email protected].
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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