The recycling delays affecting thousands of Swindon households were addressed today - 26 January - at a special briefing.
It was delivered by Cllr Chris Watts, Swindon Borough Council's Cabinet Member for the Environment and Transport, at the council's Household Recycling Centre at Waterside.
Announcing an independent review into what led to the problems, Cllr Watts highlighted issues dating back to the dawn of the project under the previous council administration.
Planned measures to address the delays include buying three more specialist recycling vehicles at £160,000 apiece.
It was revealed at the briefing that as of Thursday, 25 January, the backlog stood at 13,336 recycling collections, with the service running up to two days late
Cllr Watts said: "We've been trying to analyse the issues and, essentially, what we feel is that the crux of the problem is that when this system was put in place, what was chosen in 2021, there weren't enough resources from a project management point of view to really assess the impact of rolling out this system and the impact it would have on the current computer system and the new computer system.
"There weren't enough resources put in to actually utilise the new computer system correctly.
"I believe there were assumptions made with regard to the new vehicles, which is not the fault of the manufacturers; assumptions made that, quite frankly, were wrong, and my biggest concern is that of trying to shoehorn such a system into Waterside, which is essentially a collection of 1960s disused factory buildings that were never designed for such a sophisticated operation.
"Now we find that we are having to review all those areas to see what we can do to improve efficiencies and get the recycling system back on track.
"We're almost reverse engineering the original premise to try and get us through this difficult period."
He praised Swindon people for embracing the system and urged them to continue doing so. Cllr Watts also praised the collection crews at the sharp end of the service, saying: "If there is any part of this system that has worked extremely well, it's the way the crews have applied themselves to try and help out and mitigate the systemic issues we have found."
Cllr Watts added: "My initial conclusion is that not enough project management was put into this project moving forward. The people who were, if you like, project managing this were also the same people who were running the service.
"It should have had a dedicated team who were completely focused on looking at time management, volumes, working for the difficult times that we would find, suggestions for backstops if we did have problems.
"There doesn't seem to have been any of that upfront work."
Cllr Watts revealed that he had taken a month off work and spent it embedded at Waterside, and added: "There is not a single department in this council that, I would suggest, is not running under some sort of trauma or stress caused by lack of funding or resources.
"What I would say is that waste and recycling is very visible, so while people in Swindon are seeing the issues we are having here, we are trying to work through the issues throughout the whole council - being very up front, very honest and very transparent."
Asked about reputational damage to the council arising from the problems, Cllr Watts conceded that he was concerned about such damage, and that this was why strenuous efforts were being made to rectify matters as soon as possible.
He said: "We're not unique as far as local authorities are concerned. Many up and down the country are having the same challenges that we're experiencing.
"It stems from Austerity, it stems from the loss of - in real terms - £60m Revenue Support Grant that we would have received every year from Central Government.
"Council Tax payers always say, 'We are paying more, why are we getting less,?' and that's because what Council Tax payers are paying for, the Government is just taking with the other hand by not giving adequate funds for local authorities such as us to run.
"This is something that has to be reversed and we can only hope that a new Government will start to redress the balance."
Announcing an independent review into what led to the problems, Cllr Watts highlighted issues dating back to the dawn of the project under the previous council administration.
Planned measures to address the delays include buying three more specialist recycling vehicles at £160,000 apiece.
It was revealed at the briefing that as of Thursday, 25 January, the backlog stood at 13,336 recycling collections, with the service running up to two days late
Cllr Watts said: "We've been trying to analyse the issues and, essentially, what we feel is that the crux of the problem is that when this system was put in place, what was chosen in 2021, there weren't enough resources from a project management point of view to really assess the impact of rolling out this system and the impact it would have on the current computer system and the new computer system.
"There weren't enough resources put in to actually utilise the new computer system correctly.
"I believe there were assumptions made with regard to the new vehicles, which is not the fault of the manufacturers; assumptions made that, quite frankly, were wrong, and my biggest concern is that of trying to shoehorn such a system into Waterside, which is essentially a collection of 1960s disused factory buildings that were never designed for such a sophisticated operation.
"Now we find that we are having to review all those areas to see what we can do to improve efficiencies and get the recycling system back on track.
"We're almost reverse engineering the original premise to try and get us through this difficult period."
He praised Swindon people for embracing the system and urged them to continue doing so. Cllr Watts also praised the collection crews at the sharp end of the service, saying: "If there is any part of this system that has worked extremely well, it's the way the crews have applied themselves to try and help out and mitigate the systemic issues we have found."
Cllr Watts added: "My initial conclusion is that not enough project management was put into this project moving forward. The people who were, if you like, project managing this were also the same people who were running the service.
"It should have had a dedicated team who were completely focused on looking at time management, volumes, working for the difficult times that we would find, suggestions for backstops if we did have problems.
"There doesn't seem to have been any of that upfront work."
Cllr Watts revealed that he had taken a month off work and spent it embedded at Waterside, and added: "There is not a single department in this council that, I would suggest, is not running under some sort of trauma or stress caused by lack of funding or resources.
"What I would say is that waste and recycling is very visible, so while people in Swindon are seeing the issues we are having here, we are trying to work through the issues throughout the whole council - being very up front, very honest and very transparent."
Asked about reputational damage to the council arising from the problems, Cllr Watts conceded that he was concerned about such damage, and that this was why strenuous efforts were being made to rectify matters as soon as possible.
He said: "We're not unique as far as local authorities are concerned. Many up and down the country are having the same challenges that we're experiencing.
"It stems from Austerity, it stems from the loss of - in real terms - £60m Revenue Support Grant that we would have received every year from Central Government.
"Council Tax payers always say, 'We are paying more, why are we getting less,?' and that's because what Council Tax payers are paying for, the Government is just taking with the other hand by not giving adequate funds for local authorities such as us to run.
"This is something that has to be reversed and we can only hope that a new Government will start to redress the balance."
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