Talking rubbish

I've just returned from a great holiday but whether for good or bad had no internet, therefore no news and no blogs. Hopefully I will be able to share with you some of my holiday observations though over the coming weeks.

Today's news in The Times that 'Councils waste £200m on rubbish bins of all colours' naturally caught my eye. The headline was supposedly based on a report 'Wasted Opportunities' by the Circular Economy Task Force. Too bad the report doesn't provide the evidence to back such a claim up.

But The Times write-up also quotes one of the Report authors, Dustin Benton, who said that "analysis of 40 councils' policies on procuring wheelie bins showed that only two had co-operated on purchasing".  Surely the assumption that councils waste £200m is not based on such a small sample, or was it based on muliplying a potential saving in one council by the number of councils in the UK - sadly we aren't told.

It is also surprising that Dustin (Bin) expected find the answers as to how councils procure wheelie bins through a review of policies on wheelie bin procurement - I have never seen such a policy but have seen the evidence of many councils making use of consortium buying for bins. Why didn't the author ask the question of the local government consortia: "how many councils buy their wheelie bins through your arrangements?"

So yet again council procurement is presented as incompetent - shame that more reliable evidence or a defence wasn't presented.

Potentially a perfect love match: Northamptonshire's romance with the waste market

Too often procurement features in the news because it is found wanting. Yet I highlighted last week that the GO Awards for Excellence in Public Procurement demonstrate examples of good practice exist.  So it was great to see  BBC coverage of Northamptonshire County Council's seeking ideas from the market on how to address non-recyclable waste.

Why is this story so newsworthy?   What can we learn from Northamptonshire's approach?

1. The council are acknowledging that the market may know better than their own technical staff how to solve problems - the market is a source of innovation to be drawn on but that rarely happens.
2. The approach goes some way to slaying one of the common myths/excuses I frequently hear, namely, you must have a really tight specification which sets out explicitly the 'how and what' bidders have to deliver if you don't do that you will be exposed to challenge. Hopefully, the only challenge to Northamptonshire will be a constructive challenge to the old ways, whereas what I find so often is comfort in 'the old ways'.
3. The approach also suggests a confidence in managing risk.  This strikes me as a council which is risk aware and seeks to manage risk - the greater risk is not listening to the market.

What we now need to do is learn from the Northamptonshire case study as it develops, warts and all.  Hopefully there will be a researcher who has access to the full story and retells that story with academic rigour. Only then can we really learn.

Nevertheless, I congratulate Northamptonshire and look forward to following the story and hope fortune favours the brave.