Issue - meetings

Purchase of two additional refuse collection vehicles

This report outlines the requirement for allocation of capital funding for the purchase of two new refuse collection vehicles for the commercial and garden waste collection services delivered by Serco on behalf of the Council. These services have experienced significant customer growth over the last few years and are at a point whereby additional vehicles are required to ensure that the Council can continue to meet customers’ expectations and deliver its statutory duties around domestic and commercial waste collections.

Options considered

Do nothing – this would result in a deteriorating service level and loss of customers resulting in lost income for the Council.

Hiring additional vehicles – deemed poor value for money.

Purchasing second-hand vehicles – no availability of suitable vehicles.

Contractor purchasing vehicles – poor value for money and not in line with current fleet.

Consultation(s)

The proposal has been drawn up in conjunction with Serco who have recommended the provision of the additional vehicles and will look to factor their use in to a future round reorganisation.

Recommendations

That Cabinet recommend to full Council an addition to the Capital programme of £385,000 to purchase two new refuse collection vehicles and that the £385,000 be added to the residual £65,000 that is left over from the original budget to purchase refuse vehicles from 2019 to date.

That Cabinet recommend to full Council that the purchase be funded by borrowing of £335,000 and a revenue contribution of £50,000.

Reasons for recommendations

To ensure the Council can meet customers’ expectations and provide a service that can keep up with the continuing increase in demand for garden and commercial waste collection services. To ensure statutory duties around waste collection can be fulfilled. To support the future growth in revenue generating services.

Background papers

None

Wards affected	All
Cabinet member(s)	Cllr. Callum Ringer
Contact Officer	Scott Martin, Environment and Safety Manager, scott.martin@north-norfolk.gov.uk

Links to key documents:
Corporate Plan:	N/A
Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS)	The provision of additional resources on the revenue generating garden and commercial waste services will enable a better level of service delivery and help achieve future customer and revenue growth, supporting the MTFS.
Council Policies & Strategies	None

Corporate Governance:
Is this a key decision	Yes
Has the public interest test been applied	Is the item exempt, if so, state why.
Details of any previous decision(s) on this matter	N/A

Decision:

Decision

RESOLVED

To recommend to Full Council an addition to the Capital programme of £385,000 to purchase two new refuse collection vehicles and that the £385,000 be added to the residual £65,000 that is left over from the original budget to purchase refuse vehicles from 2019 to date.

That Cabinet recommend to Full Council that the purchase be funded by borrowing of £335,000 and a revenue contribution of £50,000.

That Governance, Risk & Audit Committee assesses the risk element of the proposals at the meeting on 13^th June 2023

Reasons for the decision:

Minutes:

Cllr C Ringer, the Portfolio Holder for IT, Environmental Services & Waste, introduced this item. He began by explaining that the report outlined the requirement for allocation of capital funding for the purchase of two new refuse collection vehicles for the commercial and garden waste collection services delivered by Serco on behalf of the Council. The additional vehicles would bolster the ability to provide extra capacity, following an increase in demand for both trade and garden waste collection. It would be funded via a combination of borrowing, residual capital budget, plus a revenue contribution of £50k. There was also a buffer for inflationary pressure. It was hoped to use Serco’s pre-allocated build slots to ensure that the vehicles were built soon and would be in use by the end of the year. He added that the Council was continuing to explore how to access sources of HVO fuel from ethical providers and it was hoped that these avenues would also be in place soon.

The Environmental & Safety Manager confirmed that the Council was currently in dialogue with Serco regarding HVO fuel and the vehicles could run on it with no additional conversion costs.

The Chairman invited members to speak:

Cllr C Cushing said that the process for the setting of the Annual Budget required all departments to submit bids for large scale projects and he queried why the purchase of these waste vehicles had not been included in the Budget for this year. The Director for Resources replied that she did not know why a capital bid was not submitted, it was possible that at the time of the budget setting, officers did not realise that additional vehicles were required. The Chairman added that garden waste collection was currently increasing by 1500 requests a year and with the limited availability of build slots for vehicles, the Council needed to act quickly to ensure that capacity could be maximised as soon as possible.

Cllr L Shires, Portfolio Holder for Finance & Assets, said that she welcomed Cllr Cushing’s question and she shared his concerns about requesting such a large sum of money so soon after the budget had been agreed. She said that she had a number of questions.

- Section 2.3 – prices being valid for a limited time – could a specific timescale be provided

- Section 2.6 £200k per year was listed for garden waste, could clarity be provided on the £500k for trade waste – was this annually or over a 5 year period.

- Section 3.1 – doing nothing resulting in a deteriorating service, no timeline was provided. An indication of when this would start would be helpful.

- Section 11.1 – how are we estimating demand if we are already at capacity

- Section 11.2 – which financial year is it anticipated that borrowing would ‘land’ in

The Environmental & Safety Manager said that quotes were valid for 1 – 2 months. To provide context, he explained that, when similar vehicles were ordered in 2020, they were £50k ... view the full minutes text for item 10

Issue - meetings

Purchase of two additional refuse collection vehicles

Meeting: 05/06/2023 - Cabinet (Item 10)