Labour councillors have called for a public debate to discuss the findings of a report which highlighted significant failures by the company responsible for Northampton’s bin collections.
Last week Northampton Borough Council made public the findings of an independent report reviewing the performance of Enterprise Management Services (EMS), which took over management of environmental services in Northampton and Daventry in June 2011.
“Significant failures” identified include the number of missed bin collections, a lack of training of staff and a failure to maintain grass verges and open spaces to an acceptable standard.
A statement released by the borough council’s Labour group has called for the report to be taken to the next ordinary full council meeting in December to be discussed by all elected representatives in an “open and transparent way”.
The Labour statement reads: “Since the Enterprise contract has been running many ward councillors have received numerous complaints about missed bins and uncut grass. “Councillors have been on the front line with some of the problems with the contract between NBC and EMS.
“The Labour Group believes each councillor should be allowed to bring his or her experiences as a community representative to a full council debate about the report. “If each councillor was allowed to do this we believe the report and its recommendations would be significantly enhanced in quality.”
The Labour statement also highlights concerns that the report does not go into enough depth and doesn’t provide an examination of how the contract has performed in Daventry.
The statement reads: “The review should have looked at each environment service area separately, namely allotments, parks, gateways into the town, bin collections, fly-tipping, graffiti removal, bulky waste collection and so on. `
“For instance, an allotment holder will not find much in the report that directly addresses their particular concerns and needs.
“Similarly, the report has very little to say about the maintenance of our premier and pocket parks. Each park is different as ‘friends of park groups’ will tell you. “No mention in the report of how Enterprise has worked (or should have worked) with other possible agencies, such as the Highways Agency, to improve key gateways into the town.
“It is still not known from this report whether EMS has regular contact with NBC Park Rangers and/or Neighbourhood Wardens who could potentially report ongoing problems. In short, the report does not address the lack of ‘joined-up’ working.”
Councillor David Mackintosh, leader of Northampton Borough Council, said he accepted there had been some “failings” in the way the council had managed the contract.
He said: “We have acted immediately to put better controls in place and now I am expecting Enterprise to do what needs to be done to provide the quality of service that we expect for people in Northampton.
“We will be monitoring the contract very closely in future and I will be expecting Enterprise to tackle the issues identified and their causes immediately.”
Councillor Mackintosh revealed Enterprise was fined £44,000 for their “poor performance” in the first quarter of the year.
If performance does not continue to improve, Enterprise could face a deduction of more than £175,000.
However, the Labour group have described the Conservative administration’s response as “wholly inadequate.”
The statement reads: “The answer has been “we accept the report in full and will implement the recommendations.” While this short statement is welcome from the outset it doesn’t however give any detail about what will happen going forward with the contract and who will be held ultimately accountable for poor performance.”
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