Agenda item

C Thorpe introduced the report and said Q2 had been a standard quarter. Training has been taking place with front line staff, some have been upskilled. Three loaders have gone through their HGV licence.
The department has had a visit from the Mayor who went out with crews and helped staff with their jobs.
The department has been promoting the Love Food, Hate Waste campaign which has been quite successful. 45 people took part and were encourage to look at ways of buying and disposing of food and 58% of participants found they could reduce the waste they produced.
Also in this quarter, the eighth community champion awards took place – winners included Boho Boxmoor and a young boy who actively encourages neighbours to recycle and helps take out their bins.
There has been a lot of work around sickness and trying to reduce it. There was a blip in July and August due to long term sick but the levels reduced and were maintained in September.
All performance indicators are green in the report and targets have been achieved in removing graffiti and fly tipping.

C Thorpe was happy to take questions

Councillor Timmis referred to the sickness levels in August. She said this is the traditional holiday period so could this be a reason. Do staff have to take on bigger workloads if some members of staff are off sick?

C Thorpe said if staff are off sick then we have to get agency staff in to cover.

Councillor Timmis said this was costly and asked if anything is being done to solve it.

C Thorpe said Dacorum had the best sickness rates within waste services across Hertfordshire. We have amended the sickness policy to make it harder for staff to have non-genuine sickness absences. However, we are sympathetic to genuine sickness and the rates are now comparable to DBC staff in the offices.

Councillor Timmis asked if DBC were responsible for the verges on the A5, especially in Markyate and Flamstead.

C Thorpe said DBC were only responsible for emptying litter bins in the laybys. Herts Highways are responsible for the verges and cutting hedges.

Councillor Matthews referred to page 15 and the way the data is presented. He said he was glad to hear the department is being proactive over sickness. He asked if it was possible to produce a percentage month variable within the reports. He said it would be helpful to see month on month changes.

C Thorpe said this data was already produced for our own benefit via FirstCare so this could be included in the next report.

Councillor Tindall referred to the point about manual staff now having comparable sickness levels to those in the offices. He said manual staff are more likely to have sick days due to accidents so are these included in the absences?

C Thorpe said they were but didn’t have a breakdown.

Councillor Tindall asked if accidents are looked at to see if the process needs to change.

C Thorpe said yes. They have now implemented a ‘Lesson learnt’ template if the accident results in more than seven days off sick.

Councillor Tindall asked if staff are financially penalised if they are off sick due to an operational accident.

C Thorpe said they are not.

Councillor Timmis referred to the extension of the skate park in Berkhamsted and that it is subject to vandalism. She asked if there was CCTV at the site.

C Thorpe did not know but will contact the relevant officer to find out.

Councillor Tindall said it might be worth speaking to the police as they have access to portable CCTV in areas where incidents occur.

Councillor Matthews said the local PCSOs are aware of the issues and the police conduct regular patrols of the area.

Councillor Birnie said this was an excellent report and congratulated the officers involved.

Outcome

That the Strategic Planning and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee note the report.