At Scrutiny Committee last week, local residents and opposition Conservative councillors laid bare the poor state of Canterbury City Council’s waste-collection and street-cleaning service, managed by Canenco.
Not only is the performance of key front-line services declining, but the Council’s governance of Canenco – a 100% Council-owned trading company – is absent, meaning that identifying problems is difficult and improving the service near-impossible as it stands.
Dan Watkins, the Conservative’s Lead Councillor for the Environment, stated:
‘With more and more bins being missed, recycling rates dropping and subscriptions to the green waste service decreasing, we can see that there are serious problems in our waste collection operation. Yet the Council leadership appear complacent and unwilling to focus on this key front-line service, which impacts every resident in the district’.
Canenco also manages street-cleaning, grounds maintenance and public toilets. However, this service is also in decline, leading to a dirtier, more untidy district, as pointed out at Scrutiny by local resident, Guy Mayhew:
‘Under the previous operator, Serco, street cleaning inspections met Grade A almost 100% of the time. Under Canenco, that’s now closer to 50% - and costs have soared 70% in 3 years, such that taxpayers are paying £3.4m per year. Dover runs a comparable service for £1.5m per year across similar coastal towns and gets better results.
There’s no contract, no spec, and no way for councillors or residents to challenge standards. Governance has collapsed.’
The meeting discussed in depth the governance shortfall. Several years after the previous services were transferred to Canenco, there is still no contract in place between it and the Council, nor are there adequate KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to highlight performance issues and make changes when problems arise.
Dan Watkins said of the situation:
‘There is a failure of governance in the way the Labour and Liberal Coalition is managing the arrangement with Canenco. This isn’t a small matter that can be side-stepped – it is half of the entire net budget of Canterbury City Council and the result is that the district’s residents and visitors are being let down. We hear more and more stories from residents about problems with bins and street-cleaning - they feel they are getting less service for more money.
The Cabinet Member overseeing Canenco says that finalising the contract and KPIs has not been a priority for this administration, but the conclusion of Scrutiny Committee is that it absolutely has to be the focus. With this recommendation now going to Cabinet for consideration, it is imperative that they act urgently to improve governance, restore the service and get control of Canenco’s costs.’
