Agenda item

To consider a report by the Director for Digital, Sustainability and Resources, copy attached as item 10

The Committee had a report before it, attached as item 10, which had been circulated to all Members, a copy of which is attached to a signed copy of these minutes. This report set out background information on the Portfolio of the Worthing Cabinet Member for the Environment to enable the Committee to consider and question the Cabinet Member on issues within their portfolio and any other issues which the Cabinet Member was involved in connected with the work of the Council and the Worthing communities.

A Member asked “In your achievements, you've listed the increase of 3.57% in points of recycling between April and June - bringing it up to 49.61%. Does this continue a trend to where you'd hope the statistics would be at this point?”

Members were informed the recycling stats were trending in the right direction and had seen a steady increase year on year. Over shorter periods the figures had to take into account a lot of factors involved.  Stats such as, weather, amount of green waste collected, seasonal variations and also strike action the year before. However there was an upward trend from previous years results. It’s where they expected it to be but not where they wanted it to be.

The cabinet member advised that they had to be mindful that the levels could fluctuate - so an annual figure was more accurate - including all seasons, weather and cost of living. The waste data flow annual figure was returned in June.

A Member asked “When the cabinet member was last questioned by this committee, a member asked about the proposed reductions to the budget for Worthing Borough Council’s foreshore team. In a written response the cabinet member informed the committee that it had subsequently been decided to make the savings by reducing the budget for the parks function instead. However, when the budget was passed by the cabinet and full council cabinet members made no mention of this change. Can the cabinet member explain the comments in her email including whether the funding for the foreshore operation in Worthing is lower than it was last year, whether the funding for the parks operation has been reduced as she suggested, how this decision was made and what opportunities were given to councillors who are not on the executive to scrutinise this important budget decision?”

Members were informed the budget set for the year included an allowance for savings to be made by the Parks & Foreshore Team of £44k. The savings were being achieved as a result of a successful re-organisation of the service which had focussed on reductions in management expenditure rather than cutting any 'frontline' services. Funding for the Foreshore Team was unaffected by these changes and was not reduced.  This decision was made through the normal process of budget setting which includes discussion of options with the officer team and colleagues in the wider group.

A Member asked “The cabinet member’s report highlights the implementation of the kerbside collection of waste electrical items as an achievement and quotes the increases in recycling percentages. Since the introduction of this service has the council recorded a drop in the amount of residual (grey bin) waste (by tonnage rather than percentage) and is the cabinet member able to tell the committee whether there has been a reduction in the amount of waste electrical equipment being recycled at the county council’s recycling centre (or tip).”

Members were informed WSCC figures did not show a noticeable reduction in small WEEE going through the recycling centre in Worthing but they did know that approx 4t per month had been collected - successfully diverting materials from  landfill. 

They could not determine a reduction of residual tonnage collected at kerbside since the introduction of  kerbside WEEE for two reasons:

1.    Current figures for residual waste had been skewed due to the industrial action. Eg they didn’t demonstrate a stable baseline.

2. The WEEE service had not completed a full year so could not estimate future results at the time. They would have a full year WEEE data in Oct 2023. 

But below is the overall from two years previous which showed a significant drop which could not be attributed to just WEEE collections. They were seeing a significant drop which could not be attributed to just WEEE collections.

April 2021 - July 2021 (Pre industrial action) 

6,839 tonnes of residual waste 

April 2023 - July 2023 

6,351.68 tonnes of residual waste 

This represented a reduction of 487.72 tonnes which was significant when you factored in approx 2,500 new properties (including Columbia House, flats above Beals/Bentalls, new Durrington Estate etc) that had been serviced since April 2021. Part of the 487 tonnes reduced would include small WEEE but at the time they could not identify how much.

A Member asked about details on future plans for food waste collection.

Members were told that in Worthing, the separation of food waste was a top priority as it represented 28% of grey bin waste. A feasibility study funded by WRAP, estimated the scheme to cost 1.5 million to facilitate. The timeline on implementation relied on funding from central government.

Resolved: The Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee agreed to refer to the working group for consideration, the matter of budgetary changes made to papers previously submitted to JOSC and how if wanted by the committee JOSC might consider amendments for further scrutiny.