Issue - meetings

Organic Waste Contract

1.1      The Chair informed Panel Members that Councillor Muldoon, had asked for this report to be submitted to this Panel for consideration.

1.2      Councillor Muldoon said that he was concerned about the quality of this report. On pages 212 and 213 he counted seven typographical errors. He said that he could not understand why this had happened because it had been signed off by the Executive Director and the cabinet member. He asked whether anything else was wrong with the report. Councillor McGeevor apologised for missing the typographical mistakes. She assured Councillor Muldoon that there had been careful consideration of the substantive important points around the recommendations in the report

1.3      Councillor Codd referred to paragraph 5.4 on page 213 of the report. He said that officers stated that it had not been possible to jointly procure the organic waste service with another borough because of procurement timelines. He asked whether there had been any discussion regarding the possible realignment with other boroughs. He asked whether this could be a possibility for the future; consideration could be given to a joint procurement of 3 or 6 years. The Strategic Waste & Environment Manager said that joint procurement had been considered and discussions had taken place with a number of boroughs. However, their time lines were not in alignment with Lewisham, and officers’ priority was to secure a contract earlier because the gate prices were far lower than they would have been in a year or two. It was hoped that there could be alignment in the future with neighbouring boroughs.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.

The Chair then left the meeting and Councillor Krupski took the Chair for the next item.