WIREDGOV

Some council websites are struggling to describe complex rubbish collection regimes put in place to meet recycling targets, says the latest report from Socitm’s Better Connected programme.

Find out about putting out rubbish for collection is the second of three survey reports on how councils websites are presenting waste and recycling information and services.

The report finds that 57% of council websites are providing a good or very good service, but that problems arise not least because every council does kerbside collections differently, even for the most basic of things, like what category of rubbish goes in which colour of bin.

The report notes that English councils are set to spend £3.6bn on rubbish and recycling in 2017-18, accounting for around 8% of all council expenditure, at a time when councils are under continuing pressure to reduce costs because of austerity.

Councils are also required to meet an EU target of 50% of household waste to be recycled by 2020. From a peak of 45% recycled in 2014, industry reports suggest performance has been dropping away, making it likely that a significant number of councils will face fines for non-achievement of this goal.

With the council website being a 24/7-available, single-version-of-the-truth vehicle for councils to communicate how they want residents to put out their rubbish, the report says if councils want to achieve the cost efficiencies of people getting things right first time, this is where they should be focusing effort.

‘Putting out the bins’ and separating and storing waste between collections has become very complicated because of recycling targets, with a proliferation of bins, bags, and caddies coming into use. Added to this, says Better Connected, every council does something different, even down to variations in the colour of bins used for the different categories of rubbish.

The survey was looking to assess how clear councils are being about the key issues: what bins are collected when, what waste goes in which, what items will not be collected, and what happens when the householder gets any of these things wrong.

Where the upshot of a mistake by the householder in allocating waste to the different receptacles results in a missed bin, the consequence is cost, inconvenience and dissatisfaction, something all parties, but most of all councils, want to avoid.

The survey covered all UK single tier councils - just under half of all councils that do kerbside collections - and found that 56% of them provide a good or very good service for this task, with some excellent practice revealed a number of councils recommended in the report.

The 'all council' survey report can be found on the Better Connected website.

Find out about putting out rubbish for collection is the second of three Better Connected surveys on waste and recycling online. Take rubbish to the tip (county councils) was published in late February and Order garden waste collection (covering district councils) will be published later in March.

These reports follows earlier ones on social care (English councils with responsibilities for adult social care) library services (Scottish and Welsh councils) and parking.

Notes for editors

Better Connected is owned and was originally developed by Socitm. Since May 2015 it has been run in partnership with Boilerhouse Communications

Anyone can access ‘all-council’ reports and individual council headline results from Better Connected surveys at https://betterconnected.socitm.net/

Full details of individual council reviews are available to Socitm subscribers only.