Neil Grundon, Chairman of Grundon Waste Management, explains why the public sector needs to become an ‘educated buyer’ rather than a provider of services.
As I write this, bin strikes in Birmingham and Brighton are ongoing and tempers are flaring in both cities as councils and unions go head-to-head leaving residents faced with mounting piles of rubbish.
In the Midlands, Birmingham City Council and the Unite union, which represents the bin workers, have continually failed to reach an agreement over the council’s decision to remove Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) roles from some bin workers, resulting in a cut in their wages.
The striking bin workers have vowed to ‘strike for the rest of 2025 or as long as it takes to get a fair deal’.
Meanwhile in Brighton, the long-running bin saga between the council and the GMB union has flared back into life after a council report revealed a 140% increase in missed collections over the last six months.
The report also referred to what is described as a ‘toxic’ environment at the council-run waste disposal site, including ‘ongoing sabotage of council vehicles’ and ‘intimidatory acts’. Sussex Police is said to be investigating a series of reported offences.
It’s not for me to get into the ins and outs of either dispute, but the question I want to ask is ‘why do councils provide waste collection services in the first place?’
Don’t waste the opportunity for change
The Environmental Services Association (ESA) has been saying for years that the private sector can provide waste collection services both at a cheaper price and more efficiently than its public sector counterparts.
As providers of waste management services, we invest millions of pounds a year in our technology – from our electric vehicles to Artificial Intelligence (AI), from upgrading our technical facilities to furthering our sustainability ambitions.
Our latest AI-led vehicle driver safety programme includes in-cab audio alerts and dual-facing AI dash cams alongside smart digital tachographs. Compare that with the fact that some local authorities still utilise paper systems for tracking the movements of their waste vehicles. It’s hardly cutting edge technology is it?
We can make these investments because waste is our business. A council’s business is so much more diverse, so why not outsource those areas in which it can never hope to compete and never hope to do a better job.
The public sector is far, far slower to adapt to change and lacks the money to invest, which means the losers are the public as they don’t get the proper level of services they pay for through ever-increasing taxes.
So why then, with all the demands on local authority budgets, do councils think it is still acceptable to spend taxpayers’ money on trying to keep an aging status quo of council-run waste services still going?
It’s a fair question, especially given that Birmingham City Council effectively declared itself bankrupt in September 2023 – as did Thurrock Council the year before.
I know there are some really dedicated and committed people who devote their lives to public service, and I am not going to insult their intelligence by saying everything councils do is wrong. It’s not, they do many things very well indeed.
But I firmly believe that at some stage the public sector needs to recognise it should stop being a service provider and start being an educated buying organisation instead.
That means choosing the right specialist private sector partners who can provide the best service to their residents, who can embrace the latest technologies with ease and deliver the optimum results.
Might I suggest that time is now.
