Posted: Wed 26th Oct 2016

‘Show Your Council Tax Bill To Dump Waste’ – Plus £164k Loss From Broken Parking Meters

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 26th, 2016

A residents permit scheme was floated as an idea to prevent rogue border raids of Cheshire people using Wrexham’s waste facilities as Councillors looked at Wrexham’s budget situation.

After the questions over the Council’s PWC contracts (our report on that debate is here) Councillors on the Customers, Performance, Resources and Governance Scrutiny Committee looked at the overspend projected in a report for the financial year as part of their budget monitoring role.

The Environment & Planning department is listed as having a £1,495,000 overspend mainly based around the Waste Management PFI contract, but £164,000 loss allocated due to parking machines not working. The parking machine loss is noted as being ‘offset by vacancy management savings’.

The issues with parking machines was described as ‘difficulties’, with the December free parking scheme adding ‘further pressure on the income budget’.

Wrexham Council currently has a long term PFI deal in place to help them achieve the recycling targets set by Welsh Government, and various UK and European targets.

The report considered today by councillors indicates a “shortfall in recycling income and cost of disposal of recyclable materials of £831k (previously reported £799k) due to falling market prices” and “increased costs such as landfill tax of £195k (previously reported £431k)”.

Councillor Paul Blackwell queried if increasing recycling was affecting the market prices, pointing out the basic economics of. He said: “When markets are flooded, prices go down. Was that factored into the business plan? The cost will never rise as more and more is flooded into the market.”

The meeting was told by a Council Officer that there are two ‘phases’ to recycling, in layman’s terms actual recyclable items and things you have to pay to dispose of. There is various quality in recyclable stuff, with generic black bin content being less useful than those sorted into the trollies (if you are lucky to have one!).

The meeting was told that the tonnage prices for recycling fluctuate, with the current situation being the more valuable income generating recycling being down (and black bin ‘quality’ being down) yet more tonnage of disposable, and therefore a cost, waste.

It was a position succinctly described as ‘income is shorter than the budget’, with ‘we are victims of our own success. The good stuff is going into our trollies and not the black bins, so quality down and so price down’.

The Council’s Finance Officer, Mark Owen added some context, explaining he had spoken with colleagues in other authorities and said it is a ‘major pressure’ elsewhere. However he pointed out that the recycling targets do need to be met to avoid financial penalties.

Cllr Blackwell enquired if the pain was shared with the contractor, and was told Wrexham Council get 80% of revenue and the contractor gets the remaining 20%.

Cllr Michael Morris added his own personal experience of visiting the Bryn Lane site on the Industrial Estate, saying he had spotted a ‘high influx of people from Cheshire’. He did not divulge how he identified the Cheshire types dumping their waste in Wrexham, but enquired if a ‘permit system’ could be introduced as the costs were being carried by Wrexham Council.

Cllr Morris continued onto say ‘I am concerned we are not as tight as we could be for out of county people’ – suggesting people ‘going along with a council tax bill as a proof of address’ as one way to decide if people were allowed to use the site.

It was pointed out that any new administration system would be an extra cost to be carried by Wrexham Council rather than the contractor.

Cllr Dana Davies queried if any ongoing costs and risks could be reviewed, and if there was any mitigation plan. She said: “My concern is this is not a one off. We are cutting services to balance this off, and we have no control over it. Do we have any contingency plans?”

Mr Owen explained that Wrexham’s position is rosier than other local authorities, stating: “For every council it will be more and more expensive to deliver the recycling targets we have from the Welsh and UK Government, through to the EU.

“As we have to do more to recycle there are more there are costs involved in that. What we have got is a facility, and a contract that says you have to meet those targets, which is less risk than other authorities who have not entered into such agreements and are only now building facilities.”

Questions were raised about the ongoing nature of the PFI deal and future impacts over the remaining 27 years. Cllr Colin Powell suggested that the contract should be ‘pulled out’ from the Environment budget, saying: “The authority is being stung to the tune of millions to the detriment of services going forward. At what point do we say this is not workable in the current format?”

However Mr Owen pointed out that even if the contract was allocated elsewhere it would just appears as another line, noting that ‘you would still have to find the money for it’.

Mr Owen continued onto add: “It is an amazing facility, I would urge anybody to go and look at what we are delivering. We have confidence we can meet our recycling targets where other authorities are building plants and negotiating contracts.

“We are not coming out of this in the time period, so we have to work with the contractor to make sure it works for us. If we pulled out of it and went in with the arrangement along with the other five authorities it would not preclude us from having to pay the existing contractor. Every authority has the problems that are in this report.”

Cllr Davies also queried the budgeting of ‘Sprouts’, the council run nursery on Rhosddu Road, saying she was under the impression it was due to ‘not go into deficit and would stand alone’.

The meeting was told the child care facility ‘is run as a separate service centre in effect. Any underspend on that area is carried forward’ with interest being charged.

Cllr Davies said: “If council are subsiding it, what is to say if it not holding its own now, whats to say it will next year? I do not know who has made the decision for it. It is ring fenced and not included in any budget, it is a priority of a service over others?

The financial context was explained by Mr Owen who pointed out the Council’s £224,000,000 budget and the overspend being discussed was £50,000 ‘so we are talking about very small amounts’.

The Chairman Councillor Steve Wilson referred to previous questions over Sprouts, enquiring why Cllr Davies was persisting with questioning of it.

Cllr Davies replied: “For this project we had capital funding, and was to be self sufficient. Where has decision been made to support it from a revenue point of view? Where is the scrutiny to see if we can manage this business or if it will be an ongoing cost to the council?

“I’m asking questions and not getting answers.”

Mr Owen replied: “There is no subsidy. In the first year it spent bit more than income, and that was added to the running costs for the second year.”

To get your full Scrutiny round up you can read our article on PWC reshaping – aka cuts – contracts raised today, plus a bonus BBC programme link too – all by clicking here…



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