One year ago today, it was revealed that up to £146,000 was spent by Denbighshire County Council on agency staff during the first six weeks of its new waste collection system.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request, made by the Journal to the council, revealed this figure, which dated between June 3 and July 14, 2024.
On June 3, 2024 Denbighshire County Council introduced changes to recycling and waste collections, including new containers and weekly collections for recyclable materials, and the scrapping of the blue wheelie bin.
Since then, some residents had been required to separate their “dry” recycling using a new three-tier “Trolibocs”.
But the council issued multiple apologies for residents across the county not having their bins collected on time since June 3.
The council’s response to the FOI request also revealed that, in the first couple of weeks of the new system, 30 to 40 per cent of rounds did not finish on time.
Though, the council added that this is “expected for a service change."
As of July 24, 2024 the council said there were approximately two to four rounds per day not finishing on time in the standard working day.
This, it said, was for “various reasons” and had also “now improved”.
The Journal also asked the council: “Since June 3, 2024, how much money has the council spent on agency staff to assist with refuse collection?”
It's response to this question read: “The council estimates that the additional cost of temporary/agency workers over and above what it would normally have working for it from June 3 to June 23 to be £44,000.
“We cannot say to which area of the service they were specifically working.
“The council estimates that the additional cost of temporary/agency workers over and above what it would normally have working for it from June 3 to July 14 to be £146,000.
“We cannot say to which area of the service they were specifically working.
“The figures have not yet been finalised.”
The council said that, on average, 10 to 15 members of staff per day from departments other than refuse collection have taken on refuse collection shifts since the new system started.
That was said to have reduced to less than five as of July 24, 2024.
A council spokesperson added: “We asked for volunteers from all over the council, and staff from a wide range of departments have been re-deployed temporarily and occasionally to support the rollout.
“Examples would include Highways and Countryside Services.
“We have been careful as not to re-deploy anyone where there would have been a significant detrimental impact on other critical work.”
Earlier that week, another FOI request revealed that between June 3 and July 25, 2024 a total of 15,607 complaints were logged with its customer services system regarding the new waste collection system.
In addition, the council said that 16 formal (Stage Two) corporate complaints were made about waste services between June 3 and July 26, 2024.
This story was first reported on by Matthew Chandler on August 2, 2024.
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