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Thousands of bin collections have been missed in the borough in the past year, new figures have revealed.
According to Swale council’s regular performance report, there were 2,694 missed collections from April to December last year – 1,079 over the authority’s target amount.
That averages out to roughly 70 missed bin collections per week.
Breaking the figures down to each quarter, the number of missed bins between April and June was 671, between July and September it was 1,262 and from October to December it was 761.
In its performance management report for the second quarter, which was discussed at Swale council’s Scrutiny Committee meeting earlier this month, the council said ongoing issues with its waste management company Biffa, including staff shortages and vehicle breakdowns, had resulted in “extremely high missed bin numbers.”
“Added to this was a garden waste re-route which had also caused a number of issues resulting in further missed bins,” the report stated.
It went on to say that the three months of July, August and September were “the worst performance” in the history of its contract with Biffa.
The report added: “The failure of the collection service has meant that missed bins have reached levels that no amount of additional resource would be able to recover within the year.”
It also added to an influx of calls made to the council’s customer service centre.
“Call demand meant an additional 200 calls compared to the previous month and an 18% increase compared to September 2018,” the report said. “Waste calls continued to create high peaks at various intervals, which makes it difficult to predict and manage.
“With waste collections getting back on track, this should alleviate some of the pressures of the influx of demand.”
Responding to the figures, a Swale council spokesman said: "The Scrutiny report looked at performance up to the end of September when we did have a number of issues with unusually high missed bins throughout the summer, which were faced by all three councils in the Mid Kent Partnership.
'We have been working closely with the contractor to improve the situation, members have met with senior representatives and an action plan has been put in place' - Swale council
"This was due to unreliability in the vehicles and a higher than normal staff absence both in frontline and supervisory roles.
"We fully appreciate the impact this has on residents and apologise for this period. We also thank residents that stuck with us and followed the advice to leave their bins out until they were picked up.
"The contract allows for financial penalties to be issued when the contractor is under performing and this was used throughout this period.
"We have been working closely with the contractor to improve the situation, members have met with senior representatives and an action plan has been put in place which has led to more vehicles being available, better maintenance, and staff recruitment along with use of agency workers where needed.
"These measures have shown an improvement in recent months with only a few smaller breaks in service. Whilst this is not ideal, to put this into context we set high performance targets, but when compared to the amount of collections made each week, the number of missed bins is very low. For example, in December there were over 535,000 bin collections made and of these 239 were reported as missed."
