Brighton and Hove City Council has set out a timetable for a series of changes at the bin depot in Hollingdean after a critical independent report.
A barrister, Aileen McColgan, found “a toxic culture” at Cityclean, which is based in Hollingdean, and set out a number of recommendations which were accepted by councillors before Christmas.
These included ending political involvement in disciplinary proceedings after concerns that councillors were overturning properly taken decisions, effectively undermining managers and enabling bullying and intimidation to continue.
The council said: “The recent report into Cityclean, written by independent King’s Counsel Aileen McColgan, sets out a number of recommendations the council should implement to create a safe, fair and inclusive working environment.
“The council has already started to implement the recommendations including taking firm action on behaviour, equality matters and workplace culture.
“These are all in progress but, to ensure we’re keeping our residents, businesses, stakeholders and visitors updated, we’ve set out the recommendations and planned timeline and will update the city moving forward.”
The timetable for the key recommendations is as follows.
December 2023 – Investigate recruitment practices to ensure fair recruitment and fair allocation of work to agency staff.
January / February 2024 – Improve joint working with unions and build a stronger culture of partnership to ensure the voices of every member of Cityclean staff are heard and are treated equally and fairly.
Spring 2024 – Replace employment-related “councillor appeals panels”, where councillors had the final decision on disciplinary matters, to bring the council in line with most other local authorities.
Spring 2024 – Revise ways of working with staff and unions at Cityclean to bring the service into line with ways of working throughout the rest of the council.
Summer 2024 – Tighten time limits for staff disciplinaries and grievances to prevent procedures taking longer than they should.
The Labour leader of the council leader Bella Sankey ordered the independent inquiry after taking political charge in May when her party won the local elections. Councillor Sankey acted after whistleblowing disclosures.
She said: “We have fully accepted the recommendations as laid out in the report and we are committed to implementing them as soon as we can.
“Having a waste and recycling service that is fair, inclusive and a healthy and safe place to work is vital for Brighton and Hove, its residents and businesses and everyone who works or visits the city.”
At a recent council meeting I asked cllr Sankey what place artificial intelligence is envisaged in such tasks as refuse collection and sorting. She replied that a report will be presented on it this year. Such machinery could increase the recycling rate by separating items which have been thrown away together by humans.
AI could speed up collections and reduce costs by learning which bins need emptying less frequently. Many are emptied weekly even though they have little rubbish inside
This technology already exists unfortunately we Brighton is tied to a never ending contract with veolia who dicate what we can and can’t recycle and what technology is used to separate it.
Don’t think Veola run Holling
dean the or empty bins do they?
Biggest productivity gain would be by replacing all the wheelie bins with communal ones. But much bigger ones than they currently use. Manchester trialed ones that were sunk into the ground and proved it made a massive difference
I hope BHCC are planning to scrap their ridiculous idea of replacing the bin lorry fleet with millions of pounds worth of EV bin lorries of unspecified capacity constantly breaking down trying to struggle up our steep hills while needing energy to chomp waste in the back and unable to go off-road to serve parks and golf courses. The electric charging infrastructure station needed at the depot alone would cost millions to build and the whole enterprise would fail very quickly on an i360 scale.
Source of there’s rumours?
So basically nothing is going to change. Union knuckle draggers still calling the shots.
I understand, from a retired Postman, that the Post Office tried out battery vans sometime ago. They had a small fleet of them but none of them could cope with climbing Coldean Lane. They just conked out halfway up and drivers had to call for a rescue. It happened so often that they went back to I.c. engined vans. If what I’ve been told is correct, then those very heavy refuse lorries will need some mighty big batteries! Or perhaps they will have on board charging systems like our blue liveried buses that start off quietly from each stop, on battery power then after 1 and a half bus lengths, a violent shudder indicates the diesel charger is revving up and spitting out clouds of pollution. Green? Hmph! My thoughts are so rude that I cannot express them on here.
No harm in trying these these technologies out but in sticking to a plan in the face of obvious failure is silly at best.
Tried when , if he is retired it must have been years ago and technology moves on rapidly.
The main issue I can see Royal mail having in this area is space , both the Brighton and ,to a lesser level, Hove sorting offices are in town with little room for development . They need to move to the outskirts of town to so the big trucks can deliver into them and then do the delivery/pickup short hops using smaller electric vans.
Check GMB Funding to political parties in the city. Stop tax payers paying for staff to be union officers PUBLISH TRUE COST OF SALARIES OF UNION OFFICIERS PAID BY COUNCIL
The council will be conned into spending money on an IT system which will not work .until the stranglehold of local GMB is removed there will never be an improvement. All three political parties on the Council are guilty of failing to have the courage to resolve the problems.
Meanwhile, a lot of us would like to know what is or is not happening re the union reps that are alleged to be behind the unacceptable behaviour at Cityclean, but Cllr Sankey is totally silent on that subject. Are they, or are they not, suspended or subject to disciplinary proceedings? Until we have an answer to that question, then this situation has not been resolved and is just another Labour/GMB fudge.
Changes means strikes
Can they carry a yard broom and shovel to clear up their mess when they spill the bins and also miss their big bin when emptying our black glass boxes into there’s and can they not leave the bins in the middle of payments so people can’t pass and yes if you would like a video of the bin men doing all these things except clearing it up I can happily upload !!!