Agenda and minutes

RESOLVED that Councillor Mrs Hayes MBE be elected Chairman of the Joint Waste Disposal Board for the municipal year 2022-2023.

RESOLVED that Councillor Page be appointed Vice-Chairman of the Joint Waste Disposal Board for the municipal year 2022-2023.

Members are asked to declare any disclosable pecuniary or affected interests in respect of any matter to be considered at this meeting.

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Disclosable Pecuniary Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

Any Member with an affected Interest in a matter must disclose the interest to the meeting.  There is no requirement to withdraw from the meeting when the interest is only an affected interest, but the Monitoring Officer should be notified of the interest, if not previously notified of it, within 28 days of the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

There were no urgent items of business.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the Joint Waste Disposal Board held on 7 July 2022.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Joint Waste Disposal Board held on the 7 July 2022, be approved as a correct record.

To brief the re3 Joint Waste Disposal Board on progress in the delivery of the re3 Joint Waste PFI Contract.

The Joint Waste Disposal Board received a report on progress in the delivery of the re3 Joint Waste PFI Contract.

The report covered:

·        Recycling Centre Booking System

·        re3 and Council Performance Statistics

·        Recycling Centre Bag Splitting

·        Persistent Organic Pollutants

·        Mattress Recycling

·        Sue Ryder Project

·        Contractor Appraisal

·        Communications

The Board agreed that it would be useful to defer the discussion to December regarding the booking system in order to allow further briefings to occur to bring newly elected councillors up to speed and remind long-standing councillors about the work of the Board and its contract. Representatives from each Council were asked to ascertain a formal indication from their colleagues as to whether continuation of the booking system would be supported and, if there were concerns, how these could be resolved.

It was noted that the complex joint contract was due to be renewed in 2031 so it was important that future decision makers were well informed about the scope of the contract, the history of the partnership working arrangements and the sites included.

In response to a query about the climate change impact of the booking system, Oliver Burt, re3 Strategic Waste Manager reflected that anecdotally everyone present was aware that the numbers of cars idling in queues at sites before the introduction of the booking system were high. He noted that no measurements had been recorded as a baseline and CO2 measurements had not been taken while the booking system was in place for comparison. It was therefore difficult to calculate the impact of reintroducing a queuing system in place of the proposed booking-system.

Sarah Innes, re3 Performance Officer went through the booking system presentation slides and highlighted the amendments made since the last meeting to develop the information available to all the partner Councils.

The re3 Performance Officer confirmed that the number of slots available were less than the number of visitors prior to the introduction of a booking system but that these are not currently fully booked. During July a fifth of all slots were not booked and that was fairly representative across other months and there was a lot of availability in the system. Due to the availability residents are able to book slots at relatively short notice and even make same day bookings or booking no more than one day in advance.

Data collected in the first week of August showed that the vast majority of visitors came to site with a booking but those who did not were invited to park and make a booking whilst on site. Those people who did not have a smartphone were reminded of the access arrangements, but a small number of people were turned away due to how busy the site was.

The graph demonstrated that visitor numbers had fallen more steeply than the tonnages of the site during the same period using the booking system which meant that residents were bringing in more waste per visit. The updated slide showed that total household waste figures over the re3  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To provide a briefing for the re3 Board on a significant part of anticipated secondary legislation and/or statutory guidance, relating to the Environment Act.

Oliver Burt, JWDB Project Manager provided the re3 Board with a briefing on a significant part of anticipated secondary legislation relating to the Environment Act. It was explained that in the ongoing absence of formal guidance, the details contained in the report would help the councils begin to prepare for subsequent financial and operational changes.

The Board were advised that waste collection was currently funded through general taxation it was anticipated that funding would be provided through contributions made by companies responsible for the material entering the market. The example given was the producers of a plastic bottle would be paying a levy to contribute to a funding pot from which waste collection would be funded.

He explained that councils would be assessed on their compliance with a number of elements of the legislation. Three collection system archetypes would be endorsed by Government for adoption by councils which had been designed by the WRAP consultancy. Funding would be apportioned to councils on the basis of their relative efficiency and effectiveness. It would be important to be graded as ‘best’ so it is key to understand how this is being assessed. The Board was advised that officers would work together to understand the implications for how Councils work and their funding. DEFRA workshops would be attended in the Autumn. A further briefing would be brought to the Board.

To consider the following motion:

That pursuant to Regulation 4 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) Regulations 2012 and having regard to the public interest, members of the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the consideration of item X which involves the likely disclosure of exempt information under the following category of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:

(3)        Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person.

NB:      No representations have been received in response to the notice under regulation 5 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012

RESOLVED that pursuant to Regulation 21 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Access to Information) Regulations 2000 and having regard to the public interest, members of the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the consideration of item 8 & 9 which involves the likely disclosure of exempt information under the following category of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972:

(3) Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person.

To brief the re3 Joint Waste Disposal Board on the Partnership’s current financial position and to advise on the first draft budget for the Financial Year 2023/24.

The Board received the Finance Report which briefed the re3 Joint Waste Disposal Board on the Partnership’s current financial position and to advise on the first draft budget for the financial year 2023/24.

RESOLVED that

i)                  the Partnership’s financial position for the current year, 2022/23 to date and specifically the factors via which had arisen, as described at paragraphs 5.5 to 5.8 of the restricted agenda report be noted;

ii)                the Partnerships 1^st draft Budget for financial year 2023/24 be noted; and

iii)               the contents of the report be noted.

Proposed dates:

8 December 2022

2 March 2023

15 June 2023

21 September 2023

The following schedule of dates were agreed:

·        Monday 9 January 2023

·        Thursday 2 March 2023

·        Thursday 15 June 2023

·        Thursday 21 September 2023