Powys council chief commits to more engagement with frontline waste and recycling operatives

The relationship between frontline waste and recycling operatives and senior staff has been reset, a Powys council chief has said.

At a joint meeting of Powys County Council’s Governance and Audit (GAC) and Economy, Residents and Communities committees on Wednesday, October 21, councillors and an independent lay member received a follow-up report following a review of the waste and recycling route optimisation programme, which was rolled out earlier this year.

The roll-out of new collection routes in March saw rubbish and recycling left uncollected for days on end, causing anger among residents.

The situation has now improved as the routes settle down.

An independent review into the changes had said that drivers at all three depots (Abermule, Brecon and Rhayader) had not taken an active part in the round-change planning, which had left some resentment towards management.

The report explains that “engagement” with crews and staff is now being implemented within the service as a lesson learned from the experience.

Councillor Sian Cox (Liberal Democrat – Llangors) said: “The service accepted the recommendation and said that future projects would include stakeholder engagement plans.

“Can we be assured that the commitments to stakeholder engagement plans recognise frontline staff as key stakeholders and such plans will always include engagement with those frontline staff from the very outset?”

Head of highways, transport and recycling John Forsey said: “It’s something I’ve reflected on and I’m going around each of the recycling depots to meet the operatives.

“I’ve already been to the Brecon depot, and it was really encouraging how open and honest they were with us.

“They acknowledged it was tough, but it has settled down, although there’s still work to do. We are committed as a service to engage with the guys on the frontline.

“Not just about the routes but everything such as personal protective equipment.

“It’s a bit of a reset on how we communicate.

“It’s always going to be a challenge across an area the size of Powys, but as the head of service I’m committed to driving that forward.”

He explained that he wanted to see a change of “culture”, with more talks “to and fro” and teams involved in decisions.

Mr Forsey explained that there were moves to provide more career progression within the service, with staff able to feed in what competencies they believed should be needed at each level of the organisation.

Mr Forsey said: “It is in its infancy. We’re starting that process of letting staff help in that collaborative approach to service improvement and better customer satisfaction.”

Recommendations and comments from the committee will be provided to Cabinet.