Agenda item
Recycling Scrutiny Challenge Session Action Plan
Minutes:
The Committee received a report that followed up from the scrutiny challenge session on promoting a shared responsibility and removing barriers to improved recycling in the Borough. The report and recommendations were agreed by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in April, 2016. Subsequent to that an action plan had been developed to address the recommendations. The report and accompanying action plan was accordingly endorsed by Cabinet in September, 2016. It was noted that this report reviews the progress against the original recommendations. The questions and comments from Members on the report may be summarised as follows:
The Committee:
· Noted that the challenge session had taken place on 19th January 2016 and been chaired by Cllr Denise Jones, Scrutiny Lead for Communities, Localities and Culture. The aim of the challenge session had been to explore ways in which the Council and its partners could influence residents to increase the amount of recycling and to ‘recycle right’; and how social housing landlords and landowners can work together to facilitate this. The session was underpinned by three core questions (a) what actions can the council and its partners take to inform residents of the importance of recycling, encouraging and to encourage residents to increase the amount of recycling they do and reduce the amount that is contaminated (b) how can landlords, landowners, managing agents, and developers improve recycling facilities on their estates and how can they facilitate residents to recycle more, and recycle right, and (c) what financial opportunities can the Council access to support recycling activities and what the options are available to use S106 planning obligations or the Community Infrastructure Levy;
· Expressed concern that not enough done to provide information on where to get the recycling sacks. In response it was noted that there had been increased publicity on provision of the recycling sacks available in different locations and that disabled and elderly residents who live in a block of flats and would like recycling sacks but cannot collect them can contact Streetline to discuss their options through email Streetline@towerhamlets.gov.uk or by phone on 020 7364 5004;
· Agreed on the need to be flexible in the way the Council supports people to recycle and need to encourage the Registered Social Landlords to support their residents to recycle;
· Indicated that it was important to ensure that the Council work with those that want to recycle both communities and individuals;
· Noted that the Council is looking at the structures in public realm to reinstate the outreach work to reinforce the importance of recycling;
· Noted that the Council is working to get the management of the blocks and residents of the blocks to work together e.g. There is a programme on food recycling in blocks and getting the right elements in place to make it happen; and
· Noted that the Council is building up the capacity of the management of contract monitoring but current contract is unwieldy but if the contractor fails to meet the contract conditions the Council can and does enforce the default payments but whilst there are challenges overall it is working well.
In conclusion, the Chair Moved and it was RESOLVED that the Committee would welcome the report and looked forward to receiving a presentation at a future meeting on the Council’s Communications Strategy in relation to recycling.
Supporting documents:
- 2018 01 16 PG - Recycling Scrutiny annual update report to OSC Jan2018 v2 Fin - legal v1, item 10.1 PDF 170 KB
- APPENDIX 1 Recycling Scrutiny Report 2015-16 FINAL (2), item 10.1 PDF 2 MB
- APPENDIX 2 - Recycling Scrutiny Action Plan Update v7 clean R12 format, item 10.1 PDF 330 KB