Thursday, July 13, 2006

Big Decisions 2006-10 - Number 1 - Waste Management Contract

This is the first of a series of articles that looks at some big decisions that need to be made over the lifetime of this Council.

The Council has recently set up a Waste Management SCAG (WAMSCAG) to look at the forthcoming Waste Management Procurement.

As borough contracts come to an end, there is a big decision required as to whether we set up a joint South West London contract with Merton, Croydon and Kingston by 2009.

There are some good reasons for doing this:

1. I suspect this will secure all-party consensus on the Council as it may lead to rather large savings over the 10-15 year period of the contract, which can be used to spend on extra serives or to hold down the Council Tax.

2. Sutton is strongly placed to lead on this as a potential site for the operation is Beddington Lane.

Whilst I think the principle will be readily accepted, the procurement process will throw up some challenges:

1. Will the Council's be able to agree amongst themselves?

2. What will be the management and monitoring arrangements? Will there be a a joint scrutiny body?

3. How will it fit in with the developing London Mayoral role?

4. Will the procurement process be risk-adverse thus ruling out the increasing role of social enterprise. For example the social enterprise ECT which runs Ealing's Waste services has just won the contract for Council's in the Avon (Bristol and surronding) area. Will a commitment be made to encourage social enterprise to apply through the procurement process?

In coming months, I will cover more of the detail of what will be a key issue over the next 3 or so years.

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