Bin Girl in or contract out?

If you become known as ‘Bin Girl’, then generally there’s a very good reason for it. In my case I’m glad to say it wasn’t due to spending a lot of time rummaging through people’s rubbish. It might seem an unfortunate label, but after six months managing the distribution of new recycling and food waste containers to 51,000 households across a Surrey District Authority, I became rather attached to it!

The bins in question were part of the roll out of the council’s new comingled recycling service that aimed to significantly increase recycling rates and customer satisfaction. The importance of a good bin delivery process to achieving both of these goals should not be underestimated. The arrival of a new bin is usually a resident’s first contact with a new service; and while a smooth roll out may barely be noticed, glitches can quickly sour people’s perceptions and make them less willing to participate.

Must have bin

The mounting pressure on local government to cut costs demands some fundamental changes, which I believe makes it all the more important that authorities handle complicated “one-off” projects economically. Making sure every household receives the right bins at the right time is a huge information gathering and logistical challenge, and it is usually more expensive to rectify a mistake than to prevent it.

We managed the bin project in house, but austerity is accelerating a fundamental shift in local government away from direct service provision and towards contract management. With fewer direct employees, how will such projects be delivered in the future? I think the lessons I learnt can inform other authorities considering similar projects. The way I see it, there are three critical elements to put in place:

Local Knowledge is one of the most important factors and feeds into all other aspects from planning to operations. We managed to achieve this in house during the planning stages, utilising the knowledge of long serving Environmental Services staff, particularly in developing communal property requirements. However, with a contracted out collections service much of the operational local knowledge lay with the collection contractors. We therefore had to ‘buy in’ this element of the project  employing existing collections operatives to go out with delivery crews as ‘guides’, highlighting properties that may not be obvious from the main roads (something that can be a major issues in rural areas).

Looking forward, if the shift continues away from direct service delivery to contract management in local government, internal local knowledge may be significantly reduced. Authorities may therefore have to budget to buy knowledge in. It will mean collaborating closely with contractors whose operatives have the street-level knowledge – potentially tricky if the contractor may be changing as part of the project. Making this sort of co-operation a clear contractual requirement from the outset is an important precaution.

Wheely delivering isn’t easy. Photo: Meriwether Lewis Elementary School (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0), via Flickr.

Specialist expertise will be needed for most major projects. At the heart of a bin roll-out is a huge exercise in logistics, which requires detailed planning and operational expertise. We did not have specialist capability in house, but I was able to put in the time to collate the necessary information, such as the number of houses on each road, the size of bin required at each property and where assisted deliveries were needed, and to work out efficient routes. The planning took several months, but meant that the experienced contractor we brought in to deliver the bins was able to complete its work quickly and with a ‘missed delivery’ rate below 4% – much better than the 6% we’d been told to expect.

Our approach to planning was pretty manual, and sophisticated software packages are now available that could have been used to collate information and design efficient routes a lot faster. However, buying in software would have been a more expensive option and difficult to justify for a one-off project such as this. There is an opportunity here for software developers to think creatively about designing “full service” packages or pricing for short-term licenses that may be more attractive to one-off users.

Dedicated Project Management resource is invaluable in ensuring work is completed to time and to a good standard. As a management trainee I was a supernumerary and a flexible resource for the council, and so project management, too, was a job for Bin Girl. However, as resources become increasingly scarce in local government, I struggle to see many authorities choosing to retain this kind of flexible role. How, then, will they successfully manage one-off projects in future?

They could recruit individual specialist project managers on a short term basis, but this is likely to be costly. Alternatively, we could see partnerships in which councils pool resources, such as project management staff and specialist software, with neighbouring authorities, giving each access to expert staff when required. Surrey already has some examples of this approach, with authorities starting to share Emergency Planning resources. Perhaps this is easier within two tier authority areas but there is no reason in principle why the idea can’t be exported to unitaries.

Bin to market?

While some authorities may retain access to a small, flexible generalist resource to tackle the unusual or unexpected, others will increasingly need to buy in expert help. Consultancies could step in to the breach, developing specialist, comprehensive packages for bin roll-outs – and other one-off or rare projects – much as they have in waste services procurement over the last 10 years.

If the consultants can bring project management pedigree and specialist experience, which the authority can backed up with local knowledge – perhaps also bought in – the end result could even be cheaper and more efficient. With local budgets squeezed, these services will certainly need to demonstrate high quality and good value for money. If that happens, local government belt tightening may mean authorities buying in the specialist skills they need might soon become as commonplace across a wide range of projects as it now is in procurement, IT, logistics or environmental services.

Amy Slack