Waste Services and the New Council Boundaries: Challenges and Opportunities

With the rise in the number of unitary authorities upon us as the Government is set to amalgamate groups of local authorities, what is the real impact on waste services? Whilst it is clear that the key driving factor behind rationalising the number of local authorities in England isn’t waste services, there are undoubtedly going to be consequences for our sector. Over the years, partnerships and joint services have been touted as a means for delivering significant cross-boundary savings in environmental services, but the reality has been far from smooth sailing. A recent example includes the break-up of the South London Waste Partnership waste collection contract. However, optimised decision-making about waste management from collection through to treatment, offers some real opportunities for innovation.

There are a number of challenges faced by local authority waste managers whose organisations are part of these changes as they attempt to continue to provide the status quo. One of the more pressing of these challenges is the impact on contract procurement. Councils needing to reprocure contracts for collection and/or treatment may find that their authority doesn’t exist by the time the contract commences. Whilst this won’t pose a risk for service continuity, it does place limits on the extent to which synergies from combining authorities can be realised; particularly where new unitary authorities are made up of groups of authorities operating different service delivery models (i.e. in-house, contracted out or LATCo), multiple service providers and differing contract end dates.

Although such amalgamations have taken place in the past e.g. North Yorkshire, Wiltshire and Cornwall, a greater number of the next wave include redrawing boundaries around disposal authorities. This means that a single disposal authority (i.e. a county council) could have its functions split across two or three new unitary authorities. The risk here is that it creates an increase in resources, rather than a saving, if the new unitaries do not decide to cooperate under some form of waste disposal partnership. Additionally, even under a partnership arrangement, the process for getting any decisions (particularly big ones involving investment) made will now include the political and management oversight from multiple organisations. This raises questions such as - what is the fairest way to split investment costs? How are differing policy agendas to be managed (for example, one may be opposed to EfW)? And to what degree must the sovereignty of each individual partner be maintained?

Despite the recognised challenges, one key benefit to waste services is the move away from the current two-tier arrangements. This removes the tension in decision-making between collection and disposal authorities. Prime examples of this are where a cost-saving initiative for one tier increases costs for the other tier, and it is often challenging to negotiate an agreeable shared position. The new unitary authorities would therefore allow the best decisions across the whole waste, recycling and reuse management cycle to be optimised.

Are you looking to understand what this might mean for your local authority? Check out my services and get in touch today.