Council backtracks over bin report blunder, Local Conservatives demand predetermined fortnightly collection plans are scrapped
Birmingham Conservatives have called on the council’s new administration to scrap Labour’s plans for fortnightly bin collections after a draft Cabinet report recommending their adoption was published “by mistake”.
Following coverage in the Birmingham Mail this morning, the council said that the wrong report had been uploaded. It has been replaced with an overview of the pilot for scrutiny, containing no specific recommendations.
But Conservatives say replacing the document does not answer the central question: why had a report recommending fortnightly collections already been prepared and signed off by the cabinet and commissioners before scrutiny had examined the pilot?
Councillor Robert Alden (Con, Erdington) Leader of the Conservative Group on Birmingham City Council said:
“The council has backtracked over publishing the report, but there is no sign it has backtracked over the plan. Residents are now told this is simply a pilot being evaluated. Yet a draft Cabinet report recommending fortnightly collections has already been written. That raises the serious question of is the council listening to the evidence, or assembling a justification for a conclusion it already wanted? Their own evidence shows that despite failing to record missed collections fully that fortnightly bin collections are running at twice the level of missed collections that weekly collections are, 224 collections missed vs 130. It also shows that while the weekly pilot saw fly tipping fall, the fortnightly trial saw fly tipping increase".
The new administration must stop allowing itself to be railroaded into delivering Labour’s plans. Residents kicked Labour and their fortnightly bins plan out in May, they expect the ruling administration to reject fortnightly general waste collections and concentrate on providing the reliable weekly service residents deserve.”
Conservatives also challenged whether the pilot evaluation gives an accurate picture of residents’ experience, pointing to missed collections and difficulties reporting problems. They warned that figures based on reported failures cannot reliably demonstrate how well collections are working if residents have been unable to register those failures in the first place.
Councillor Richard Parkin (Con, Sutton Reddicap) Conservative Shadow Cabinet Member for City Operations and Digital, said:
“A missed collection does not stop being a missed collection because the council’s reporting system will not accept it, if residents cannot report problems, those problems risk disappearing from the statistics while the rubbish remains outside their homes.
A serious evaluation must account for missed collections, reporting failures and residents’ actual experience. It must also distinguish the benefits of restoring recycling and introducing food waste collections from the effects of cutting general waste collections to once a fortnight. Presenting selected headline figures while failing to capture service failures would make this an exercise in justifying a policy, rather than an honest test of what works best for Birmingham.
Changing the report on the website is not enough. The administration must explain who commissioned the draft recommendations, what evidence they relied on, and whether keeping weekly general waste collections is being genuinely considered. Residents voted for change. They should not end up with Labour’s cuts to bin collections delivered by a different administration.”
