Transcript

Good morning, everybody. Please can I welcome everyone to this meeting of cabinet on Wednesday, the 19th June 2024 from the Walton suite which is the Guildhall, the time is 930am. My name is Councillor Martin told the chairperson of the cabinet and leader of the council. This meeting is live stream from the council's YouTube channel and the recording will also be available after the meeting. Subtitles can be switched on and advice on how to turn these on is set out online. Can everyone ensure mobile phones are on silent and can I remind members to use their microphones? In the unlikely event that is necessary to evacuate the building, the fire alarm will sound. Please follow all the instructions given to you by our team. It is unusual to hold the meeting in the pre-election period, but this meeting is being held as there are urgent and critical matters for cabinet to consider. Like every council, we face a statutory deadline to implement food waste collection service and the timely procurement of the necessary vehicles are essential to this. This will demand an extensive lead in time and a delay in decision making could significantly affect this timetable. For these reasons, the recommendations in item 8 of the agenda have been assessed by the council's monitoring officer as urgent and critical. The scrutiny committee therefore considered this issue on the 6th June 2024 and we have their comments before us to assist cabinet in their decision making. However, there will be no other matters requiring a decision on today's agenda. There will be no announcements and there will be no announcements of changes to cabinet committees. So turning to the agenda. The first item of business is apologies for absence and we have apologies from Councillor Learning. The second item is membership of cabinet committees and we will make no changes at this meeting. The third item is disclosures of interest. Councillor Porter. Thank you. I disclose interest because I am a county Councillor but it's a non-prejudicial interest, non-precure. Thank you very much indeed and I need to make the same announcement. I have three requests from councillors to speak. Councillors Wallace, Lee and Horrell wish to speak on item 8. There is no public participation. The next item is the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting held on the 22nd May

1. Cabinet, will you agree that the minutes are a correct record of the meeting we held? Thank you. Item 7 is leader and cabinet announcements but we have no announcements so I will move straight to item 8, cab 3452 which is the procurement of waste and recycling vehicles. And I would like to thank Mr Hickman and Mr Williams for coming along to assist in any discussion about this. I'm introducing this paper since Councillor Learney is not able to attend and so I'll start by saying a few words about proposals and transfers. The council has been a long journey to increase recycling rates in the district and the paper in front of us is to enable us to move ahead at pace on the next stage. Specifically what we're talking about today is the introduction of curbside food waste collections and the need for us as an authority to procure the vehicles to make this possible by the 31st March 2026. We've made a lot of changes to recycling since 2019 including the introduction of curbside glass collections, improved garden waste service and the weekly curbside collection of batteries and small electrical items where people leave them with their main bin. And all of those have contributed to our increased recycling rate since 2018-19. In February we agreed that we would seek to introduce a separate food waste collection service by March the 31st 2026 through our current contractor BIFA. This is a requirement of the Environment Act but also is in line with our strategic priority as administration of going greener faster. Introducing a food waste service could reduce the district's carbon waste emissions by 1,900 tonne equivalent CO2 per year. It's a significant figure. In order to do that the decision in front of us today and the paper in front of us sets out why we want to procure nine 12 tonne specialist HVO fuelled food waste vehicles using the new burdens capital funding provided through Defro and the HVO as it says in the report will be in line only from suppliers who meet the requirements of the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification and the Zemo Partnership Renewable Fuels Assurance Scheme. The new burdens funding is actually that there are a couple of changes. The main change versus what we've been giving new burdens funding to do is that we're proposing to purchase 12 tonne trucks rather than 7.5 tonne trucks and that partly reflects the rural and urban nature of our district. But aside from that, the report in front of us makes a recommendation that's consistent with the funds available, learns from the very large scale consultation that we've had, reflects our commitment not only to the rapid introduction of garden waste collections but the rapid introduction of a reliable service and takes a focused and practical approach to decarbonisation. In addition to the new food waste vehicles, there's also a proposal following the rationalisation of our rounds in order to reduce the mileage used. It sets out the rationale for buying a electric waste collection vehicle, one of the large ones that's used on the conventional routes for recyclables and for residual waste and the necessary works of decades to support the charging of this one vehicle. So colleagues, that's the paper in front of us today. We will go through it in a bit more detail as we go further into the meeting but at this point I'd like to ask the councillors who wish to make some comments to come forward. And if we could start with Councillor Wallace. Thank you for letting me speak. I'm really pleased to see this item that's before us. I just had a few comments to add on scrutiny. It's going to be clarified that this item has not had a review from scrutiny. At their meeting on 6th June, the Scrutiny Committee was provided with high level summary slides only. These slides did not include the business justification which is Appendix A or the draft cabinet report and even the high level slides were not available until the meeting itself. The feedback from the Scrutiny Committee is therefore extremely limited and should not be taken to represent proper scrutiny of this item. Please can this be clarified in the minutes. Some examples of this on funding. Funding statements appear to be inconsistent between this report and the budget approved at the February full council meeting. In particular section 2.4 of this report states that the capital budget for this program is 1.78 million whereas the budget that was approved at full council for food waste collection vehicles was £2 million according to their full council meeting report pack from earlier this year. Please can you advise the difference? Similarly on Barfield depot, what's the potential impact if the council misses out on the rental income? Also the questions on recurring costs and the final resale values of the vehicles that have not been had chance to be properly scrutinized. Regarding the trial of the electric refuse collection vehicle, it's great to see that there's a plan for introducing a trial electric vehicle and we look forward to hearing the outcome. However, in order for anyone to sign off an additional £36,000 per year, I would normally expect to see some financial justification in the report. Moreover, the recommendation states that the £36,000 will be funded from an existing waste budget, whereas section 2.12 of the report says that this will come from an existing environment budget. Are these the same thing? Please can you advise why a financial report was not included? Thank you. Thank you very much for doing that. I'll wait until I've heard all the comments from councillors before. Yes, could I just clarify it? Does that also count as you reporting back as vice chair of the of the Scrutiny Committee? Or are you speaking individually or a mixture of the two? I'm not sure if you're speaking as vice chair. Obviously we want the chair to be supportive of the comments you're making around effective scrutiny. Have you just got to start with the chair? These are therefore my comments. Councillor Horrell. Chair, good morning and thank you for allowing me to address cabinet today. As you will already know, we are in support of the development of our waste and recycling services, having initiated the glass collection and welcome this Council's commitment to delivering food waste collection from March 2026 and I'm delighted that the government's new burden funding can cover the majority of the costs as detailed in your paper. It is helpful to have the additional information in the cabinet paper today, which was not available at the scrutiny meeting recently, but therefore I have a number of questions that have arisen from the paper before us. Please can you help me understand the recommended route of purchase for the new trucks? I accept BIFA has the buying power, but why have we decided to alter the current contract approach where prices charge back per household for trucks to a process where we purchase and BIFA lease back? Is this a matter of the funding rules and all the ongoing costs or both? DAFRA obviously assumed in our funding allocation that we would use smaller, less expensive trucks for waste collection. What was that additional cost due to the assumed multiple trips to transfer stations and the carbon impact indicated in the paper? I could not identify that specifically and it clearly influenced the choices recommended today. Can you again clarify why is the pilot EV vehicle costing an additional £36,000 per annum to run? I understand the need for the infrastructure investment, but not the operational increase. Please can you clarify this? Given we already know from other authorities that EV collection vehicles are successful, what are we gaining from the increased cost from the EV purchase aside from an improvement to our mission for this one vehicle? Does table 12.4 on page 48 indicate we still do not know exactly which vehicle we are buying? Are we still assessing these options? And finally, I do not see any risk identified in section 10-1 regarding BIFA and their financial robustness as an organization if they are purchasing on our behalf. We shouldn't assume that all things are always normal for commercial organizations. Can you indicate if this has been identified, calculated and covered in any of the risk work that you have undertaken that is in the more detailed report? Thank you. Thank you Councillor. Now, Councillor Lee, if you could come forward and make your comments. Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'd like to echo Councillor Wallace's concerns regarding scrutiny for this procurement process at the last scrutiny meeting. I welcome the future improvements to our waste and recycling services. Really good news. I do have some questions and observations and some concerns which I hope you can help clarify. Regarding lessons from other councils, we didn't get to this in scrutiny, but I wonder were there any lessons from Basildon Council's fully electric food waste truck service which was introduced 12 months ago. Basildon's partnership with NRG Riverside does not require a large cash outlay and often no risk fixed price agreement. The service may have valuable insights for our future all-electric fleet and for Winchester to make the switchover from HVO sooner rather than later. But particularly noteworthy is Basildon's initiative includes developing a high-tech workshop collaborating with local colleges to create an apprenticeship scheme and recruiting local apprentices and engineers. Such a holistic approach promotes a green economy and workforce. So can we factor in a similar approach into our waste and recycling collection program? And on the subject of extended producer responsibility, which incentivises producers to design products with minimal environmental and health impacts, this could significantly affect the funding of our new waste services as producers reduce the waste load from products. When combined with our campaign to encourage residents to reduce waste through better purchasing and recycling habits, this could be a double whammy impacting on the cost-effectiveness of the new service. So should we be capturing this risk now to be prepared for this possible future consequence for our recycling and waste services? And related to this is the future vehicle sizes. They may need to downsize as less waste is collected. This might mean we have stranded assets as the market for larger vehicles disappears. The 700k predicted asset value for vehicles post-2029, with a two-year lifespan left, may therefore be unrealistic. Has this been considered? And I'm sorry to raise an old chestnut about HVO, but obviously I understand we're going to be looking at accredited sustainable supplies of HVO, which is most welcome. Otherwise, we would not be compatible with our climate and nature declarations. We must continue to recognise that HVO has many drawbacks, though it minimises some local impacts, it could cause adverse effects elsewhere. Agricultural feedstocks for HVO require significant water resources and can contribute to water pollution through fertiliser and pesticide runoff. Energy input into manufacture of the fuel is high. Perceived lifecycle health and environmental benefits of HVO feedstocks are therefore questionable. Importantly, how will we audit this critical aspect of harmful HVO feedstocks impacts if suppliers shift to non-accredited HVO supplies? As I mentioned in scrutiny, the 2022 International Council on Clean Transportation Study highlights the risks associated of HVO demand shifting supply to monoculture farming and deforestation with increased global HVO demand. The UK does not have adequate clean HVO supplies for current demand, so how are we going to monitor this risk and ensure we live by our concerns for the environment? The HVO has a premium price due to high production costs. Can we avoid high fuel running costs in the future by negotiating old purchase of HVO at a fixed price to minimise future increased running costs for our waste services? This question was not addressed in scrutiny. And final question, can the Council confirm it really is committed to the better full lifecycle costs and environmental benefits of an electric fleet as soon as possible? In other words, to make the switch when the green infrastructure, the capacity issues with vehicle spaces is solved. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed and thank you for a useful set of questions from colleagues on this issue. So there are some questions I'll try to answer directly, but other questions that I'll be asking for particular support on. I mean, first of all, I can reassure Councillor Wallace that the minutes will reflect the proceedings of this meeting and the comments made. So there's there's no need to have concern on that. There were some comments made about finances, and I will try and capture all the comments made as we go through. There was a question about the capital spending of 1.78 in paragraph 2.4 versus 2 million in the budget. If you would like to provide perspective on that, my assumption would be that we agree an envelope in the budget and details as we get further towards the actual spending and the budget is absolutely a maximum and it is not a problem if we spend less than that as far as our local authority budgeting process works. But maybe you could provide more detail. And yet, just to provide some detail on that one, we didn't know what the government funding would be when we set the budget. So we made an assumption around that we based the budget on best estimates. And then when confirmation the government funding came through, it was less than we had assumed in the budget. So we made an assumption on the government portion of it, and we topped it up to 2 million with our own resources. So we've kept our top up element at the same amount as we did in the budget, but the government portion of that is less than we thought. Thank you. That's very helpful and very clear. The two other aspects of finances which were talked about were the three other aspects of finances. The second one was have we reflected rental, the opportunity cost of depot space in terms of the financial appraisal? Or how is that reflected? Presumably when a situation where we are going to need more space for vehicles in order to comply with the government directive. So to a certain extent, you could get into an argument as to what would need least depot space and whether there were financial implications of that. But generally, how do we account for things where essentially we're doing what we've been instructed to do by central government in this case, have an extra fleet for food waste? That's a clear enough question. Is that one for asset management for Mr Hendy or Mrs Keyes? Thank you leader. We've recently received information, although not confirmed from the government that they won't be providing you burdens funding in relation to the additional depot space required. The argument there is that introduction of a food waste service should lead to a reduction in residual waste collection and therefore existing depots should be able to cater for the increased space required for food waste service. We need to be careful in terms of charging the cost of depots to our contractors to provide the service, because in effect we do that. The dangers that goes around in the circle comes back to us in the contract price. So although we recognize and account for the cost of the depot, we might necessarily charge that to our contractors in terms of services they provide, because it would be in our interest to do so. Thank you for that clarification and there's an implicit point there which probably needs bringing out, which is do we have the exact details of the revenue, new funding, new burdens funding, not the capital, which is what we're talking about spending today, but the revenue picture. So one of the challenges in producing a business case on this is that the government have said that they will give us money towards the cost of a food waste service, but they have not said what it will be, and they have not said what it will cover, although there are some things they have already told us that it won't cover, such as the depot space. Is that a fair summary of the situation? Yes, this is a dynamic situation because we don't know the answers to the costs and the funding of providing the full service as it goes forward. This paper is very much focused on procurement of these vehicles, which is that first step. As we work up the full costings, we will take account of any lost revenue that there might be from the space that we needed to hand over to house additional depot space, so we will take that into consideration as the picture becomes clear. Just for clarification, is that something that will happen through the medium-term financial strategy or is it something where there will be a dedicated paper or what is the expectation on this? As that information becomes clearer and decisions need to be made specifically on it, there will be information coming to Cabinet, but we will put our best assumptions in our medium-term financial strategies that comes forward in November. So both, in other words, that's really helpful. Thank you very much indeed. Now there's a second area, which is quite an important one, and I think merits a bit of a deeper discussion, which is about the fleet, the model we've used to access the fleet, the way that we use in capital spending rather, for example, leasing. Is it possible and what flexibility that gives us as the contract reaches the end of its period or for other reasons to move from one technology to another, to move out of HVO to electric? Is it possible to provide a bit more clarity on that? I don't know who would lead on that, if I asked that question a bit too broadly. Can start on that if you'd like, leader. The explanation of the approach to procuring vehicles is set out in Table 3 on page 39, which gives the three options, so WCC purchasing the nine food waste vehicles on BIPA purchasing for us, BIPA purchasing the nine food waste vehicles and then leasing. And you'll see from that table, the recommendation is to go with option one. You've already intimated the reason for that in the way this would work is that we'll buy the vehicles, we'll allow BIPA to use them for the length of the existing contract. At the end of the existing contract, there'll be opportunity because obviously there will be a choice for the council to make and whether the existing contracts extended or there's a new contract providing service at that point in time. Those vehicles will be returned back to the council and there's an estimated book value in the report here of what those vehicles would be worth at that point in time. Either we would make the contracts extended, we'd make them available back to BIPA on the same basis of the existing contract, or if an alternative contractor is running the service, then we can make the vehicles available to the contractor at that point in time. So in effect, the council buying the vehicles, it's running down the value of them over the life of the existing contract. It doesn't lose the value of those vehicles because it can use them in the future in terms of the existing contract if it's extended or it could make those vehicles available to an alternative contractor if the contract's not extended. Thank you. Okay, so that's very helpful. That's page 39 and that does outline why we're doing it in the way that we're doing it. And what is, so presumably, so because we own the food waste vehicles rather than they're being tied into particular contract with BIPA, that then gives us more flexibility should we decide at some point to sell them on to somebody else since the globally the demand for this kind of vehicle is not going to go away and replace them with electric vehicles. That is something because of the way we're doing this that actually remains within our control, should a suitable business case and feasibility case and all the other cases that we need to put together come forward. Exactly right. And what I didn't make clear that the options they're showing what the default position in the contract at the moment is that BIPA charge us for the service and included in the charge of that service is the cost of the vehicle. So an alternative might be that BIPA provides the vehicles for us and the rate per household food waste collected increases. You'll see from the table there, it shows that that would not be the most economic approach for the council to take. So the council's interest to buy the vehicles itself, make them available to BIPA and as you suggested, we still have the value of those vehicles at a point in time of need. And I think that ties into a question that Councillor Horrell asked just for clarification, which is one of the byproducts of the way the contract is currently structured is that if it was to be added to the contract as a sort of per capita rate, I mean, firstly, there's the issue that it wouldn't be consistent with the government requirement on how we use capital funding. And secondly, because of the short period of time, we'd effectively have to pay back the cost of the entire vehicle within the period of the contract and then wouldn't have it at the end of the contract. So we actually end up with a risk that we pay more for a short period of time and then have nothing at the end of it. So that is why that particular model, which is a very reasonable and helpful question from Councillor Horrell, that's why it doesn't work. I think that's fair, but also what it does would leave us in a position of making it more difficult to not extend the BIPA contract because we will have paid for it quickly. The only way to save that money at that point would be to extend the BIPA contract. And I think, again, what it's doing is building in flexibility by buying them outright, as well as complying with government rules. The other options, I mean, leasing seems by far the easiest option because it doesn't commit to long term, but it's the most expensive as well, and isn't compliant with government rules. So this particular variation of the contract gives us so much more flexibility, both to move to electric vehicles more quickly, to see the whole life of them or be able to sell them on. So and then I think on financial issues, I'm just checking through all the costs. Yeah, there's a question of the cost of 7.5 tonne of 12 tonne rather than 7.5 tonne. So that's quite an important question. We're doing something different from the government's expectation, be useful to understand why we're doing that and what cost implications we think it has. Thank you, Lida. So the difference is about a 7.5 tonne truck is about £90,000 to £100,000. The 12.5 tonne truck is about £130,000, £140,000, based on the current values. The reason we're heading for 12.5 tonne trucks, rather than the government, which is only funding 7.5 tonne trucks, is because Winchester as an authority is on a fortnightly residual collection at the moment. And it's in an area, as you mentioned, which is rural urban mix, and it's low deprivation. And if you look at the government modelling, which was done by an organisation called RAP and released in February, we come out with about 1.8 kilograms per household per year, because of our fortnightly residual collection and our level of deprivation, which are the two main changes across the country, the average upon which the government is basing its size of its vehicles is about one to one and a half. So we're scheduled to produce more food waste. And therefore, because of the size of our authority, and the distance to the transfer stations, it's the only practical choice for us is to use 12.5 tonne vehicles. However, the government is only funding seven and a half tonne vehicles. Thank you. That's very helpful. I mean, and that ties back to the fundamental geography. I know Councillor Lee mentioned Manchester. No, he mentioned Manchester at Scrutney. He mentioned Basildon today. I did take the opportunity to look up Manchester. And of course, through a Winchester lens, we are actually a much bigger city council than Manchester because we cover 661 square kilometres and they only cover 116. They appear to make the comparison based on population, where they have 569,000 people and we have 130. So that gives an idea of quite how different the challenges that we face. We have five times the area, they have four times the population. So there's a 20 fold factor difference in population density between the two areas. I can't speak for Basildon, but actually the Basildon point is worth testing because aside from the extra cost of electric vehicles, which we very definitely haven't got funded by government, it is somewhere that we would like to get to. So what do we know specifically about Basildon or about electric vehicles? Can we have some perspective on that if we're? Sorry, I'll start and pass over to Campbell. But yes, we have been talking to Basildon and we've been using the APSE, the Association for Public Service Excellence to support us as well in terms of talking to other authorities because they've obviously got the overview on what everyone's doing. So we have spoken to them, we have been able to see them as well. And we are learning from what they found with their trial. But like you say, their area is very different. And the electric vehicles they're using are very new, so they haven't had a full life cycle yet. So it's been difficult to establish the full life cycle of these electric vehicles in service. But yes, we are definitely learning from others and we are talking to them. Yeah, I think so. As Mr Hickman said, we have been speaking to Basildon. We're also talking across the Project Integra Partnership where there are three authorities in Hampshire who currently collect food waste because that is something locally we can learn from in terms of how their systems operate, how much tonnage they do and some of the local things about how to collect from communal properties, for example, are going to be very relevant to us as we come to roll this out. And I think one of the things we've got to do is we are not the first people to be rolling out food waste. There's about 50% of the authorities across England do it at the moment. And there's a lot of learning we can do to make sure that when we do a food waste collection, it's rolled out efficiently and effectively and is the service that the residents want to receive. There's a lot of learning to take on from other people. Thank you and presumably that is something where both scrutiny and cabinet will be receiving further details. You know, as you come back later in the process, which is much appreciated and. The. Think in terms of most of the financial questions on the original question about the additional cost. Yeah, and I was going to come to the RCV in a minute. So the RCV we've had a couple of comments made, which is one is how do we justify it? There was a question about whether the environment budget is the same as the waste budget to which the answer is pretty certain. Yes, it's the same thing. So that's why it's just the language isn't used in the same way in different places for which apologies. And yes, there's reference to extra cost of the electric vehicle. My understanding is that that is an extra capital cost because they cost more quite significantly more and actually the fuel cost is higher as well as that correct or shouldn't be higher. So it's the capital cost that's mainly showing up in that extra cost. Is that is that correct? This is slightly different to procuring the food waste vehicles in that this is part of the existing contract, so the existing contract allows for the refuse collection service to be upscaled as and when new houses come online. So over the last four or five years, you had a lot of houses built in the district, so there's a need for an extra vehicle. So that's provided for within the contract already. So all the financial bits are covered in the contract. The only additional costs are the fact that we're not using a straight diesel vehicle. We're choosing to use an electric refuse collection vehicle while we're recommending that here will give us a chance to see how it works. We can learn from it and it will give us time to look at the electricity supply issues that we've got at the moment and then we can feed that into whatever decisions we make in the future about electrifying the fleet. That's very helpful. It ties into a second question that was raised. So and this is very clearly something that we're doing because we want to learn how electric works in an area like ours. You know, we could be fairly confident that we can run it around the city and more concentrated urban areas without too much difficulty, but that isn't the only type of collection we do. You know, we need to learn whether we can use it to collect, run from the depot down to Denmead or Southwark, make the collections and come back again. So those are the kind of things we need to be learning with this new type of vehicle, if I understand correctly. Yeah, Mr Williams. Yeah, I think you're right. And this is what it says one electric refuse collection vehicle. And whilst it is a trial, it is going to be operating on a day to day basis for the rest of the life of the contract, collecting waste from households across Winchester. And the trial aspect, as you say, is can it get to Denmead? How much electricity does it need? How do the crew operate it? How do we maintain it? Because our ambition is to go greener faster and have more of these in the long term so that we can operate these across Winchester as effectively as possible. So that's that's why it's a trial, but it will be operating on a day to day basis as the other waste trucks will be. And that's what we'll learn from. Right. That's a very helpful perspective. So this is not a kind of experimental vehicle, this is expected to be doing as much heavy lifting or collecting as as any other vehicle. And it's something that we're starting from the first day. Now, one of the things that was touched on relates to Biffa itself, and there's really three questions that come out of that. The first relates to the fuel purchasing. And are we purchasing at scale? Are we purchasing to the quality we need? Now, my understanding is that it's Biffa who buy the electricity and Biffa who buy the fuel. Is that correct? And then we if for example, because this was this again came up on screen, it hasn't been touched on today. If for, you know, the much hoped for expansion of renewable energy leads to lower electricity prices, is that something that might feed back into? Is that one of the things we might learn about through this use of this electric vehicle? And similarly, changes on fuel? How is that contracted? Yeah, so at the moment, yes, so Biffa are paying the cost of the fuel. So we are we are currently using, for example, hydro treated vegetable oil in our waste trucks at the moment. And there's a price differential between what is in the contract and what that costs which we're paying for. But yeah, the electric cost is anticipated, the overall cost of running electric vehicles, or electric vehicle is anticipated to be roughly the same. And this is part of why we're doing a trial to see how this works with one vehicle, what the maintenance costs are, what the energy costs are, so that we can so that we can take that forward. I mean, it's gonna be very important part to work out what the real active operational impact of using an electric vehicle is on cost. Can I just add slightly to that, in terms of the HVO procurement that we're currently using in our refuse wagons, we were very much involved with the procurement process for that. So there were several quotes provided by different suppliers. We were personally involved in checking all the accreditation for that. And obviously, we're utilizing Biffa's bulk purchasing across all of their business. So we think we've got a good deal with this, but we have scrutinized it ourselves, and we're happy with the way that was done. Thank you very much indeed. And then Councillor Horrell also talked about risk management relating to Biffa as a whole. I mean, presumably that actually was something that in theory we covered in the original contract procurement. But presumably everything that we're doing here will fold into the risk management of the contract as a whole. You know, if Biffa is in trouble, we have a bigger problem than just what's happening to food waste. But could we maybe have a bit of perspective as to how we manage the risk of the Biffa contract? Yeah, absolutely. When we are looking to keep things in major contracts, we clearly do lots of financial vetting of the potential partners that we'll be working with and contractors themselves. But it doesn't stop at the procurement and entering into a contract stage. So for all of the Council's major contracts, we keep a constant view on the financial robustness of all of those contractors. So we subscribe to a financial analytics service, which flags up should changes occur. So as I say, we keep a constant eye on that for all of our major contracts. So any financial changes with Biffa would be no different. And we always look to minimize risks financially for financial exposure with any of the changes to contracts, any procurement of additional services, procurement of goods or services, we would look to minimize that. So we wouldn't look to purchase upfront unless we needed to, we would look to secure our money as best as possible. Thank you very much indeed, that's very helpful. And then one final risk to touch on, I think, relates to HVO. So is there, that was very helpful answer there from Mr Hickman about our involvement in the choice of provider of HVO and ensuring certification. Do we have a way of managing that ongoing? I mean, do they need our permission to change provider? Yes, they do. And we will be sort of agreeing this on a year by year basis. So every new financial year, we will re-agree this, if you like. And then we can have an input to it if we want to. But I think that the main point with HVO is we just need to keep it under review and make sure that we're checking with accreditation and the supplier very carefully. But that's all done through Biffa, but we do have those processes in place so we can get that information to make those checks. And as I say, review on an annual basis. OK, that's brilliant. Thank you very much indeed. And then I think the last issue that we haven't touched upon is the effect of EPR on all of this, which Councillor Lee referred to. Now, I happen to know quite a lot about EPR because in an earlier life I was in Germany when I was working in Germany when they introduced the Green Dot system, which is effectively a form of EPR. And it is about packaging, it's not about food. You don't pay a recycling, you don't pay a charge on food through EPR, you pay it on the packaging. And there's also an interesting point, which we always used to say in the packaged goods industry, which is a third of the world's food is lost through inadequate packaging. So there's actually a risk if people move to less effective packaging that food waste goes up because the food goes off more quickly. But do we know? I mean, have I understood the situation correctly? What is the effect of EPR? What do we expect it to be? Certainly the experience in Germany was that it led to changes in how things were packaged rather than what people were eating or other such things. But Mr Williams, could you maybe provide perspective? Yeah, so there's a number of changes which are happening in the next three or four years. So extended producer responsibility, where packaging products, the disposal and recycling of those will be paid for by the producer. There's a deposit return scheme coming in about 20p on all non-glass drinks bottles. And there is simpler recycling, which includes food waste recycling and a consistent set of recycling across England. And all of that is linked into national marketing campaigns and labeling schemes so that wherever you go in the country, it'll be the same system. The intention of all of that is that there's a big change in the amount of waste produced and recycling produced. So which is from our point of view is a good thing because we'll see the amount of waste produced hopefully go down and the amount of recycling hopefully go up. The intention we get to about, across England, 65% recycling by 2035. So it may well be that the volumes of different types of waste in our waste and recycling collections changes over the next few years. But what we're doing at the moment is planning for those changes and making sure that the systems we put in place are flexible enough to cope with those changes which are coming forward. You are right, there isn't anything directly related to food waste apart from its collection. But what you are seeing is producers and manufacturers responding to those overall legislative and financial systems to try to produce systems which produce less food waste. So if you go to the closest supermarket to here, for example, you can buy a pineapple that doesn't have the crown on it. And that saves that supplier 700 tonnes of waste each year. And the pineapple is just as good. And you're likely to see more examples of that type coming through the food system going forward of things which don't harm the quality of the product but produce less packaging. That's going to be really interesting to see how that happens. And as a local authority, we'll have to be aware of those and work with our residents to make sure there's a system which they can work within on the long term. I think I've covered all the points made by visiting councillors before moving to give cabinet colleagues a chance to have their say or ask their questions. I just want to go through the scrutiny paper in a bit more detail and make sure we've covered all the points here. Now, Councillor Hall raised a range of points, but I think the ones that she still wanted addressed, I hope she's brought to this meeting and the other ones were handled in scrutiny. Although there was a point here about effective communication of changes, which I think would stand, it's obviously not something that reflects in this paper, but can I have clarification that we will see a comms plan? I know that there's extra resource. Well, firstly, if you could clarify that we have put extra resource into communications to go with this project. And secondly, that any plan that comes back will include a communications plan as well. So we do have additional resources planned and in place now to deal with this. So we've got a new communications resource working with our communications team, a lady called Claire Satterley has just joined us, as we are going to be rolling out changes very shortly and communicating what we do. So there's a reroute mentioned in here, which will be the first thing that people will see. And that's the start of a number of things which we'll be doing differently over the next three or four years. And it's really important that we communicate this to people. One of the advantages we have over potentially other authorities is the end of last year, we did a consultation and engagement with a community where eight and a half thousand people responded to that and gave us some really helpful information, which will help us design our services going forward. The other thing it did was one of the questions was asking about, would you like to be involved in further discussions on this? And so we've got five and a half thousand names and addresses of people who are willing to be involved in this further discussions. So if we have questions about how would you like to see the food waste service rolled out? Or how do you like to see the introduction of pots, tops, trays and cartons, which we'll be doing in the future, we can contact those people and make sure that we run a service which is the simplest one for people to use. And again, that all comes back to making a simple service for people to use, which increases the recycling that we do. Can I just add slightly to that as well? Because in the autumn when we come back with another paper, which we've spoken about a few times already, we're going to set out what resources we also need on the ground in terms of getting this change in recycling habits. So we do envisage we will recruit some recycling officers to support Campbell's team. That will be covered in that report and that will make sure that this effort is sustained because we've talked about how habits are going to change. We need to sustain the change and we need to adapt as things move on in the future as well. So yes, we are going to be seeking approval for additional resources over the ones that Mr Williams has already mentioned. Thank you. That's very encouraging. So if I summarize the situation, obviously decisions on future resources, we've made a future point, but if I summarize the situation, we've already increased the resource to improve communications on waste and recycling. We're starting now so that we can put in place the communications that are needed, you know, before some of these changes come and with the other changes that are coming in advance and to make sure that we're ready for those changes when they come along. We've got the right infrastructure in place to support them, both in terms of extra staffing and I'm delighted to see that the new officer concerned is here today, but also in terms of general resource. So that's extremely helpful. So then after Councillor Horrell, Councillor Lee made a set of points and I think he's made those points again here today and the one he hadn't made about Manchester I've addressed anyway just to prove that I did actually watch the video last night of the scrutiny meeting to make sure I understood the points made. I was using that rather wonderful feature to play the video at one and a half times speed, so it took a bit less longer for me than it did for you. There are a range of further points that were raised by the scrutiny committee in terms of clarification of the decision making process which I think was handled at the meeting which we've talked about today. The cost of kitchen caddies and whether they would be free, which will be a subject of a later paper but I think our intention is that they will be. The discussion about other technologies on vehicles such as hydrogen and solar panels. I actually read the paper on mixing hydrogen with diesel, so it was a lab experiment and I think they're starting initial feasibility trials sometime this year, so I'm not entirely sure it's ready to roll out in our fleet. The feasibility of the Council establishing its own anaerobic digester, I mean if that was the thing that we needed to do or that Hampshire needed to do since they are the disposal authority and I do believe they always said that they believe there's enough market provision for that, then that would be a separate decision. The proportion of residual waste that was food waste and how we produce it, the potential for increased vehicle movements and how this will be managed. The infrastructure requirements for electric vehicles and the steps taken. To secure necessary power supplies and I think that ties into our intention as an authority and again not a decision we're taking today, but we do need to have a local area energy plan in order to address the major issues that we're seeing about electricity supply, not just for us but for also for new homes and new developments. The anticipated government funding and its reliability being provided, why some of the finances that people might want are not were not available at scrutiny and in some respects are not available now and will be handled at a later date. An alignment with national recycling targets and the basis for CO2 savings, so I think my understanding from watching the video is that most of those all of those points I think were properly addressed in the meeting. The one area that remains outstanding in the resolution that was passed by the committee is that the committee agreed to recommend that the cabinet consider implementing education programs to encourage composting and food waste reduction alongside the new collection services. And I believe that that is something that we will consider. I think I would like clarification of anaerobic composting versus open air composting to make sure that we're encouraging people to do the right thing in terms of methane emissions and other such things. So when we are talking about composting, I mean I think that's a good recommendation that we should take, but my request would be that we make sure we're encouraging the right kind of composting. I don't know if you have any perspective on that. Councillor Cutler as somebody who probably knows more about this than most. I think the point I made at scrutiny was that while a lot of food can be composted, from a health perspective, meat animal products should not be composted at home and so they should be in the food waste whatever. That was the problem behind the foot and mouth outbreak and it is a significant biosecurity risk. So in terms of composting, we still need the food waste collection from for meat products anyway. In terms of the balance between collecting the methane from an anaerobic digester, I would suggest that's a better option in most cases than composting. It's just the cost of collecting it in some areas you might be better off to compost it because whatever you do with composting you will not be collecting the energy from it, whereas within a digester you do and I think that's the one area, but it may be an efficient way of encouraging people to reduce the amount of collection. So I think there's a balance and we do need to look at it. So I think we can agree. I don't think we need a specific resolution on this. I think a message from Cabinet is completely clear that we do need to consider these other factors in terms of our communications programme, but I can see responsible officers are in the room and I'm confident they will act accordingly and maybe make a note in the minutes rather than making a specific resolution. So what I would like to do Cabinet is, well, first of all, are there any general questions that people have? Otherwise I will make sure we've covered each of the sections of the paper and the associated appendix. Councillor Porter. Thank you. I'm going to try and keep my questions to specifically the purchase of the vehicles because that's what this condition today is about. We've inevitably spread out onto other things, but I think that's the important point today. At the moment we have vehicles for our general waste use that collect from small roads, from narrow roads. So my question is how will these vehicles be suitable for the smaller roads and or will we need to purchase a special vehicle for that purpose? And having heard the LGA seminars about sharing good practice which are led with WRAP as well, which I recommend to anybody, any Councillor actually listening, is that conversation about the additional ways in which some Councillors have offered hot boxes, for instance, to very rural communities and found that that's been successful. But my main reason I'm asking is how will these vehicles be suitable for small roads? And it sounds as if you've already taken into account the likely growth of about 1,700 houses a year for this plan. So I'm pleased that the vehicles are 12 and a half tonnes. Mr. Williams. Yes, so we currently have 17 waste trucks, which are out and around all the time, two of which are narrow access vehicles, which will go around the centre of Oldsford or the centre of Bishop's Waltham where there are lots of small roads. And they're actually the same size as the ones we'd get for food waste. So they shouldn't be an issue with food waste trucks being too big to go anywhere. I think we've got 10 houses on a road in Twyford, which is really narrow. But that's the only place where we have a really small, really, really small issue. But by and large, the trucks we have at the moment are the same size as food waste trucks will have, so they shouldn't be a problem. That's very helpful. So, so the new trucks are the same size as the small trucks we use for places that are hard to reach. So that's good. Any other questions? Otherwise, I'll start piling through the paper just to make sure we've covered everything. So Council Plan Outcome. So I'm on page 15. We'll come back to recommendations at the end. Council Plan Outcome, I think is obvious, obviously, like technical emergency, local economy, doing well, your services, your voice. The financial implications, I think we've talked about those and highlighted that we are focusing on the capital programme and showing how we are spending more than the amount we've been given by Defra. But but within our plan for how much more we would like to be spending than we are given by Defra. Any questions or comments? No. The legal and procurement implications. And I think the main item of interest there is the way that the government has given the money has actually limited our options in terms of how we can get to the vehicles. But we've discussed that already. We've talked about workforce, property and assets, the consultation and communication. And we've had a reference to the very large consultation that's been done. And also we've talked through the consultation with scrutiny that and had a report back from members who were at scrutiny. The environmental considerations including the discussion of HVO. The public sector quality duty, which was done for the project overall in July 2023. And then once we get to the autumn paper, which is talking about the details of implementation, I think that will then be talked about in more detail because we need to think about how people with disabilities or quite difficult to handle different foods or whatever will be handled. Data protection is not relevant. Risk management we've talked about and we've talked about other risks sitting outside this paper, such as the contract risk and how that would be managed. We have the supporting information. Which essentially outlines the plan in a bit more detail, includes the questions of funding, finance and ownership. Section on the round rerouting and the purchase of the electric RCV. And then. Other options considered and rejected, so I think we covered that anyway during the discussion. We then have Appendix A, which is new and is the business justification for the vehicle purchase. I think it brings back our. Five cases that the Treasury is so in love with. The strategic case, which is pretty unanswerable for something that is consistent with our Council priorities and that we've been told to do by government. The economic case. In terms of the carbon saving. And the wider APSI analysis of the options in front of us. And the options are present for the different types of vehicles on page 38. The commercial case as it relates to the contract, the financial case. About the non ring fenced capital funding we've received and how it be used and why we have chosen to purchase the food waste vehicles. And how the overall cost looks and then the management case and also how we're doing this in a way consistent with the project and program methodology and essentially summarizing in this document that. All five cases add up to a strong case with making decision in front of us today. So I think that's everything. All there any further questions from colleagues? Any debate or comments that people wish to make on proposal in front of us? Council Thompson, I'm just very, very briefly leader. I am fully in support of recommendations in this paper. It's been a big aspiration of this Council to introduce the food waste service collection, and it's one of the things that residents when you talk to them are really keen to know when we are going to do because so many other areas already provide this service. So I'm I'm very happy to support recommendations and look forward to getting on with the project. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Thompson. Council Westwood. Thank you, leader. I support comments from Councilor Thompson. This administration is committed to introducing food waste recycling across our district, but we need to introduce that in a financially responsible way. The recommendations in this paper allow us to move forwards on this commitment with a sustainable funding model and meet the government targets food recycling. This Council has been rated number five District Council in the UK on actions taken towards achieving net zero, and this decision today, if agreed, will further strengthen that position. I will be supporting the recommendations in the paper today. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilor Cutler. Yes, I just like to agree with those other comments. I mean, on top of that, I think it's important to recognize that when we started this process of looking at it. We we pushed the edges, the boundaries of what could be achieved in terms of electrification here, but what. The final decision really came around reliability. What's so important from the decarbonization point of view is to be able to introduce a reliable service and this process of HBO fueled 12 ton trucks will allow for us to be confident we can introduce a reliable service and introducing reliable service at the beginning is really important if we want to achieve that really high level carbon reduction that is the up to 1900 tons of CO2 equivalent. That's of key importance and Councilor Lee talked about. There being some risks if things were that successful, I wouldn't be too unhappy if the outcome is that we actually end up with too much capacity. There's always flexibility when you've got too much capacity. One can can downsize, but it's a lot more difficult to scale up if we haven't got the capacity there, so I'm confident that the recommendations will allow us to. By taking this decision today, it will allow us to really take the first major step towards introducing a successful food waste collection service. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, we've concentrated on food waste vehicles today, but also the RCV. It's I think it's a really important decision to be making there. I'm really pleased that the team worked really hard to look at a particular bit. We first look at the rearrangement of the miles of travel of our waste vehicles and it really reduces the carbon by 13%. Well, that's the expectation. It does show that we're addressing our changing population in the district in a way in which we serve our population and the infrastructure that they need to live good lives. So I'm really pleased to see that that work is being done. The interesting thing is that we don't know exactly what a life cycle of an RCV is, if it's an EV vehicle. And the interesting point will be to bring out costs of new parts, which has changed over the last 10 years. And so even people at Basildon that might have done work have got will have a lot to learn as well. And that growth of knowledge throughout the whole of the industry, I think will be important. Will EVs be the final solution or will we be going for hydrogen vehicles? We just don't know at this point. So actually having that one that we can test for ourselves for our own population, as we know, in so many things, so many populations vary. And having that information for ourselves will be really strong. So I really do support the principle of introducing one, I think it'd be really useful to do. But I also really appreciate the changing miles of travel in the way in which our rounds will be organized to make sure that we address the needs of all of our population. It's great. Thank you. Thank you very much. I don't think there's anything more that I need to say, actually. I completely support this paper and the purchase of these vehicles. I think, as Councillor Cutler has pointed out, in energy, we talk about the trilemma, the need for low carbon, reliable, low cost. And I think what we're doing here really hits that sweet spot. So absolutely supportive of this measure. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you to everybody for all your comments. Thank you also to visiting Councillors for your questions and the issues you raised and gave us a chance to address. This is an exciting step forward. And I, of course, want to thank the officers that prepared the paper, as well as Councillor Learney, who took a very important role in making it all happen as well and isn't here today. So thank you, Mr Williams and all the colleagues that have helped you prepare what we have. This is an exciting opportunity. It relates to the Council's priorities. It enables us to decarbonise more at pace, not just by cutting CO2, but also by cutting methane, by cutting carbon from waste and cutting carbon from fuel. It will let us increase recycling and it will do so with pace, urgency and quality. We will be learning how to decarbonise faster. We will be focusing on executing with excellence. And there's a thing that's so striking about the papers is quite how much carbon you save by delivering food waste recycling with excellence and at pace and how much we benefit from doing it sooner and better. Because at the core of this and the reason that's driving the choices in front of us today is that we are going to introduce a food waste service that's reliable, that's high quality with excellence and questions like the reliability and quality of the vehicles that we're using, how quickly we can get those vehicles, how much sooner that allows us to introduce the service, the really important ones. And we're taking a holistic approach. You know, this isn't just about the vehicles. We will have come back in the autumn and have more about the details of the exact service provision, but also the communications, how we work with residents, how we've listened to them so far, how we will continue to work with them in order to ensure that we have a service that meets their needs, but also meets the needs of the planet as well. So I think the recommendations we have in front of us are prudent and they're focused on what matters in order to make a difference to the lives of our residents and to the environment and the state of our planet. We have four recommendations in front of us. The first is to agree to procure through BIFA nine 12-tonne food waste vehicles to operate on hydro treated vegetable oil at an estimated cost of up to $1.34 million to be funded by the New Burton's Capital grant. The second is to provide through the contract with BIFA an electric refuse vehicle for the new route to be introduced in autumn 2024, reflecting the rationalisation and redesign of the routes to cut carbon and improve efficiency. The third is to agree that the annual revenue cost of £36,000 to cover the cost of the electric refuse vehicle collection vehicle will be funded by an existing waste/environment budget, just for clarity, and agree subject to the introduction of electric refuse collection vehicle to the waste fleet to the use of up to £30,000 from this project's approved capital allocation to fund infrastructure requirements at the Council's depot to enable charging of the electric refuse collection vehicle. Those are the four recommendations in front of us. Kevin, do you agree? Great, I agree. Thank you very much indeed and thank you again to Mr Williams and Mr Hickman and all the other officers involved, not only for preparing the paper but also for steering it through scrutiny and being here to answer all our questions here today. That's greatly appreciated. We know there's a lot more work coming. We're very grateful for the work that you've done so far. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is to note the future items for consideration by cabinet as shown on the July 2020 forward plan. Also for note, there have been two notices of additions to the July forward plan to include for additional reports to July Cabinet.