Feedback for I Novem
Every year we consult on our budget and council tax proposals. This
consultation is even more important now due to impact the coalition’s national
deficit reduction strategy is having on local government budgets.
In order to inform our budget decisions we asked you whether good value for
money, low cost or high performance is the most important to you in local
services. The chart below illustrates quite clearly that good value for money is
by far the most important to you.
16%
10%
Good value for money
Low cost
High performance
74%
We also asked you if, based on the services provided by the council and the
level of council tax you pay, you think the council provides value for money.
Overall 61% of you agreed that the council does provide value for money.
19% of you neither agreed nor disagreed and a fifth of you disagreed that the
council provides value for money.
We asked you how you think the council should save £31 million a year. Of
five possible ways to do so, your greatest support was for:



Reducing the number of senior managers (96% agree)
Reviewing back office functions (89% agree); and
Reviewing front line service efficiency (76% agree)
In order to try and make these savings we asked you to tell us which two
services you think the council should make its top two priorities and therefore
protect. You said schools and care for the over 65s. The chart below shows
the services you felt should be a priority.
Care for over 65's
17%
Service area
Schools
15%
Waste collection and disposal
11%
Public transport
11%
Care for physically disabled and those with
learning disablilities
11%
Highways etc
10%
Children’s social services
9%
Environmental health and trading standards
6%
Libraries, culture etc
5%
Housing services, housing and council tax
benefit
5%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%
% of consultees
We then asked you which two service areas you think the council should
scale back or stop providing altogether. By some way you told us that this
should be housing services, housing and council tax benefit; and libraries and
culture as demonstrated in the chart below.
Housing services, housing and council tax benefit
23%
Libraries, culture etc
20%
Environmental health and trading standards
14%
Service area
Public transport
9%
Highways etc
8%
Waste collection and disposal
7%
Children’s social services
7%
Schools
6%
Care for physically disabled and those with learning
disablilities
4%
Care for over 65's
3%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
% of consultees
We also asked you if you agreed or disagreed whether certain services could
be better or more efficiently delivered by volunteers. A majority of you felt that
services such as schools (57%), children’s social services (54%), waste
collection and disposal (63%) and public transport (55%) could not be
delivered better by volunteers however 51% of you felt that libraries and
culture could be better or more efficiently provided by volunteers.
What have we done with the results?
Your views have helped us to set the budget and council tax for this
2011/2012. The council recognises that value for money continues to be
important to our residents and so there will be a council tax freeze with the
average band D property remaining unchanged from last year at £1,245.20
The budget also provides for a £2.7million investment in services for older
people and helps protect schools’ budgets. Nearly £30million will be invested
over a three-year period in improving schools and facilities for young people.
You also told us that you want the council to become more efficient. The
council started to draw up plans back in 2008 so that wherever possible it can
improve efficiency, reduce waste and duplication and manage a more
sustainable budget for the future. These plans include a review of senior
management and support services, which are well under way, as is a review
of how the authority buys goods and services. These plans are now starting to
deliver savings and will eventually the savings will amount to £40 million a
year.
25%
You also took the opportunity to let us know about your concerns regarding
the budget and other issues that affect you.
Some of you expressed concern that turning off street lights at night would
lead to an increase in crime levels. We have been monitoring areas where
lights have been switched off and these areas show no increase in crime
figures or incidences. Crime levels continue to be monitored by the police who
will feedback any concerns they have to us.
Many of you also said that you would like to see more done for the elderly.
We recognise the huge contribution that older people make to our society, for
the need to ensure that older citizens are supported and enabled to remain
active and independent within our communities. We recognise that
understanding the needs of older people, engaging with them and facilitating
support when it is needed is the responsibility of the whole Council not just the
Community Care & Housing Department. To ensure that the needs of older
people are high on the agenda of the Council one of the Council’s Executive
Members, who together form the Council’s decision making Cabinet, is
recognised as the Older People’s Champion. In the Current administration this
position is held by Cllr Matthew Riddle.
We are already seeing the impact of our Better Support for Older People plan
which sets out how we propose to meet that future need. Three new Extra
Care housing schemes are now open, each including a ‘well being suite’
supporting the local community. There is a new purpose build dementia day
service in Yate, increased investment in low level preventative support in the
community e.g. Handyvan scheme, First Contact Scheme and Well Aware as
well as increased funding being made available to meet the costs associated
with personal care.
Our Community Care & Housing team work closely with South
Gloucestershire Senior Citizens Forum and Age Concern South
Gloucestershire to ensure that the ‘voice’ of older people is heard and to help
shape our plans and the services we commission and deliver. A smaller group
of older people actively engage with us through our Older People Working
Together group.
A number of you also had questions about the Badminton Road office in Yate.
The Badminton Road office was opened in April 2010 and was funded
through a combination of rationalising and selling off older, more expensive to
operate and often unfit office accommodation, and ending leases on more
expensive privately rented offices. The selling of some of the older office
buildings contributed towards the cost of the new offices and money was
saved on not paying leases to third parties. This enabled the council to
‘prudentially borrow’ the rest of the funds required and so the money was not
diverted from other projects or services.
Through bringing teams together, and using technologies and other ‘smarter
working’ methods, we have been able to reduce the number of desks by over
25%, enabling a smaller replacement office. At the same time smarter working
patterns mean staff will travel around less, work from home more, require less
equipment and use fewer resources like paper and ink. We have also sought
to share our offices with partners, such as Police and Fire.
In summary, the savings that result from the new office building will be
achieved through:
 moving out of inefficient buildings and selling some of them
 ending leases on expensive and privately rented offices
 sharing offices with other public sector bodies such as the NHS and
Police
 use of technology and smarter working to enable a smaller building
footprint
You also asked us about how environmentally friendly the Badminton Road
office is. When building the office the council was committed to developing a
new office building that was environmentally sustainable and wherever
possible future proofed for a changing world. The building has been designed
using Reduce/Re-use, Recycle/Renew principles to meet the highest
environmental standards. Overall, the building design is flexible and adaptable
to suit change of use or climate throughout its lifetime. A wealth of ecofriendly
features have been incorporated that will reduce both running costs and
carbon emissions.
The eco-friendly features include:
 solar panels to heat water
 a bio mass boiler to provide heat
 rain water harvesting system to provide free water for flushing toilets
 large windows to provide natural light and ventilation
Putting together all the money saving features in the building it should save
the council money, and contribute over its life to the new office saving the
council £1.3m per year.
Another area many of you commented on was the new waste and recycling
arrangements. Environmental and financial drivers, together with public
demand have led to the introduction of the new weekly food and fortnightly
plastics and cardboard collections.
Back in 2008, the Council consulted residents on options for the Local Waste
Strategy. The feedback on a proposed weekly food waste collection was well
supported. In addition, many residents specifically requested kerbside
collection of plastics. These issues have also been raised over the past five
years at public meetings and by individual correspondence. When we
undertook the five year review of the SITA waste contract, we took the
opportunity to consider how these demands could be met, resulting in the new
recycling collection service.
Collecting food waste weekly is also a direct benefit to residents because food
will no longer have to linger in black bins for two weeks. The food waste bins
are lockable and vermin proof, so flies will not be able to access them if kept
closed, and for the majority of residents they can be stored in an enclosed
area away from foxes etc.
By increasing our recycling we can divert more waste from landfill and make
the most of the finite resources used to create them, by turning them into
something new, thereby reducing greenhouse gas production and preserving
our natural resources.
Across the country, councils are implementing separate food waste
collections as organic waste forms methane gas as it tries to break down in
landfill. Methane is 21 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon
dioxide,. Prior to the new service, food waste represented 35 percent by
weight of waste in black bins. Instead of being delivered to landfill, the food
waste is now processed in an in-vessel composting facility where it is
processed to produce a soil improver for use on agricultural land.
Plastics are made from crude oil, a limited natural resource. Separate
collection of plastic bottles enables them to be made into a range of different
products, from new plastic bottles, to food packaging and even clothes.
Previously cardboard was sent for composting along with green waste,
however now it is collected separately so it can be recycled back into
cardboard, perhaps as packaging or as a new cardboard box. This is a much
better environmental option, as it uses the resources again as another
product, rather than turning it into soil improver
In April 2011, the tax levy for every tonne of waste sent for landfill disposal
increased to £56 per tonne. In 2010/11 the cost of landfill tax (at £48/tonne) to
South Gloucestershire’s residents amounted to over £3 million. It is therefore
in local tax payers interest to minimise the amount of waste sent for landfill
disposal.
The savings from diverting waste from landfill are being reinvested into the
new collection service and also in additional waste treatment at a new facility
at Avonmouth.
Much thought went into providing the most economical and environmentally
beneficial service for our area. We could have just added food waste,
cardboard and plastic bottles to the dry recycling collections to avoid using
another separate vehicle. However, this would have meant one vehicle having
to carry, in separate compartments, food and drink cans, glass bottles, paper,
used engine oil, textiles, metal foil, batteries, food waste, plastic bottles and
cardboard. This was considered to be too many and it could not be done with
the present recycling fleet. Collections would have been very slow which
increases the hazard for other traffic on the roads. Collecting that many
materials on one vehicle presents different problems. For example, when you
have so many materials collected, efficiency drops due to the fact that the
vehicle has to return to the transfer station as soon as the first compartment
fills up, in order to collect any more material.
However, the carbon footprint of the actual collections is a small part of the
overall carbon footprint when the entire life cycle of the materials is
considered. Recycling more materials, especially the food waste, and
diverting it from landfill significantly outweighs the environmental impact of the
collection process.
The Council undertook considerable research into the collection of cardboard
prior to the introduction of the new services, as similar systems have been
introduced else where to great success. However we have listened to
residents’ feedback and we will be making free reusable bags available, for
residents to store and present their cardboard. Residents will be able to
collect a bag if they need one, from a network of local distribution points in the
summer. Look out for more details in the June edition of SG News.