Shropshire Council under fire over £28 million Veolia waste contract measures

Councillor Ted Clarke used the authority's environment and services scrutiny committee to question why recommendations from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) made in 2012 had not been implemented.

Defra had called for the creation of a contract management manual to ensure council staff could effectively monitor how Veolia was performing in its £28 million, 27-year contract.

The department had also requested that the amount of Shropshire Council staff dedicated to monitoring the contract – which covers waste collection across Shropshire and the management of the incinerator at Battlefield in Shrewsbury – was not reduced.

Councillor Clarke, who represents Bayston Hill, Column and Sutton, said it is vital that a contract management manual is put in place.

He said: "It is a critical thing. I appreciate it is an onerous task – it would take someone three or four months to come up with a manual which would provide ongoing guidance for staff – but it is absolutely critical with the complicated contract we have got."

Councillor Clarke also voiced concerns over cuts in the number of staff dedicated to handling the contract.

He said: "The Defra report said that the team we had to manage it should not be diminished any further and that seems not to be the case.

"How many have left the waste group since November 2012? Because it was in fairly bold terms it was being requested that there should be no further reductions in staff and I am really anxious about that.

"It is something that appears to be a case for considerable concern when we appear to be reducing the team on this contract. We are entirely reliant on an increasingly small cohort of officers.

"It is a very sophisticated multinational company running this contract and unless we are diligent we will not be getting value for money."

Paul Beard, Shropshire Council's waste contracts manager, said that while the number of staff working on the contract had reduced, it was largely in relation to the financial restrictions faced by the council.

He said: "I do not think that is what any of us would have wanted but having said that we are in a very different financial position to the one we were in five years ago."

Mr Beard also said the council is in the process of arranging the contract management manual.

Responding over the issue Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council's cabinet member responsible for waste management, said the authority had been delayed by Defra's failure to produce a generic contract management manual which could be adapted.

He said: "The report presented to the environment & services scrutiny committee on November 30 clearly stated that all of the 2012 recommendations had been implemented, with the exception of those linked to the creation of a contract management manual.

"This work was scheduled to follow the development of a generic document to be produced by Defra in conjunction with other councils, and this project had been delayed. We will continue to try and work with Defra on this issue, but if the project experiences further delays we will look to write our own manual."