A Labour councillor has apologised to residents and admitted a “systematic failure” within the local authority after red-faced chiefs pulled plans for festive bin collections.
Last week, West Dunbartonshire Council (WDC) announced it had pushed back its bin collection schedule, sparking fury among residents who are forced to wait an extra two weeks for their bins to be emptied.
The council blamed “workforce resource challenges” – after already attaching the festive schedule details to thousands of bins – as they failed to convince workers to ‘volunteer’ to work overtime between Christmas and New Year.
Residents whose bins were due to be collected on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day were initially told that they would be emptied that weekend. However, the council has now advised that they will not be uplifted until at least January 8.
It means residents are being forced to wait four weeks between bin collections during the festive period.
Labour Councillor David McBride, the council’s convener of and spokesperson for Infrastructure, Regeneration & Economic Development, said the last-minute announcement was due to the results of a union ballot, which saw the majority of members who voted deciding against volunteering to work on public holidays.
He said he has now asked the Chief Officer to bring forward alternative solutions so the situation doesn’t happen again.
He said: “The provision of our refuse service has always relied on the voluntary overtime to cover the gaps during public holidays and my understanding is that those volunteers receive overtime payments, public holiday payments and they also receive a re-rostered public holiday day in lieu of working the public holiday.
“We have always been very appreciative of those staff who volunteer to work on a public holiday to ensure that we can continue to deliver a quality service to local residents during holiday periods.
“Unfortunately, the trades unions balloted their members and the majority agreed that they will no longer volunteer to work on public holidays. I recognise this was also a really difficult decision for those who usually volunteer as they will have lost out on hundreds of pounds of additional payments, which many households rely on over the festive period.”
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Cllr McBride said that the council’s chief officer for Roads and Neighbourhoods Services was aware of the result of the trade union ballot and informed the leader and deputy leader that the timing meant that she had no option but to make changes to the planned bin collections as the notification came too late to be able to provide cover over the festive period as there were no volunteers to provide the service.
He added: “As this is an operational issue, the Chief Officer of Roads and Neighbourhoods Services developed a plan to adjust the services and she also produced a communications message that would be shared to residents.
“The leader of the council and the deputy leader were given sight of the communications which were completed on Thursday, December 19 at around 8.30am detailing the required changes.
“I fully appreciate the level of disruption that this has caused for a large number of households over the festive period and I apologise for any inconvenience that has been caused. I too will be personally affected by the change to planned service.
“However, it is clear that we have a systematic failure and that we can no longer rely on voluntary overtime for service provision. Therefore, I have asked the Chief Officer to bring forward alternative solutions so that our residents affected by the lack of volunteers to deliver a quality waste collection service, so we will never be in this position again.
“Many of our frontline staff are required to provide services over public holidays and their working arrangements and shift patterns mean that cover is provided without having to rely on the voluntary overtime on public holidays. By addressing this systematic failure local services should be able to be maintained 365-days-a-year without having to rely on volunteers working additional hours at overtime rates and remove a single point of failure in the current arrangements.”
A spokesperson for WDC last week said: “As is normal over the festive period, we seek volunteers to work additional days in order to clear the backlog from public holidays.
“This year, no volunteers have come forward and therefore it is not possible to have collections on additional days. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes residents whose bin collections are affected.”
The GMB union has been contacted for comment.
Sharing the news on its social media channels, the council came under fire for the move, with the post attracting more than 430 comments in less than six hours.
One person said: “Unacceptable, one month between collections at arguably the time of year when most people generate waste. Brown bin charges introduced and not for a full year and now monthly at Christmas. Does that mean a rebate on council tax as a loss of essential service?”
Another said: “So what exactly is the reason for this? It’s the busiest month in the year and you’ve now pulled this six days before Xmas. No point putting out notifications without giving a full explanation although I won’t hold my breath waiting for that.”
Another added: “So the very year residents get charged for brown bin collections is the year we get a reduced service over Christmas? Here’s an idea, how about the council uses some of that extra cash generated and pay the bin men a decent rate to come out because we all know that’s the real reason behind the lack of resource is the lack of financial incentive.”