Local people pay their Council Tax and expect to receive the services they pay for. Is it too much to ask for a bin to be emptied? This is the situation residents of Cumbria have found themselves in over the past seven years. In October 2024 the dispute reared its ugly head again as their bin collections have been delayed for what seems like indefinitely. Many locals have been left feeling short-changed.
Bin collection services have been unreliable
In the wake of the most recent interruption to the bin collection services in October 2024 representatives from the Westmorland and Furness Unity Council released a statement sympathising with residents for their plight, and by way of compromise promised to get the service operating again with the help of a half-a-million-pound cash injection. The statement released by the Council was enlightening as it attributed:
- workforce illness
- available jobs, and
- disrepair to refuse vehicles
for the lack of refuse collection services in the Westmorland and Furness area.
However, Cumbrian residents have heard these rehashed promises before. In September 2024 residents of Westmorland and Furness were left pleading with the Council to have their bins emptied. The Council responded to the pleas of the affected residents, who just wanted to receive the services they paid for, and between 2 September 2024 and 6 September 2024 sent messages to most residents acknowledging the delay to their bin collections and promising that the service would next be scheduled in two weeks time on 20 September 2024. Other messages from the Council claimed they could not fit a bin collection service though. Another message sent to Hawkshead area residents advised them to wait three days for the resumption of bin collection services.
New Unity Council
Many people see the joining of Councils into Unity Councils as the magic wand, magically making all Council services perform to the expected standards. This was the preferred strategy of the Conservative Government in July 2021, to alter the fabric of government at a local level by wanting to change it from a situation where a county and district were providing split services, to an amalgamated Unity council providing all the services.
Many of the affected residents live in an area governed by the Westmorland and Furness Unity Council, which was founded in Cumbria on 1 April 2023 when the four Councils of Cumbria Council, Barrow Borough Council, South Lakeland District Council, and Eden District Council joined forces to form Westmorland and Furness Unity Council.
There has been support and criticism about whether a district, county, borough or unitary council is best placed to provide public services. The Institute for Government helpfully summarised the split between the types of services provided by the different councils. It observed that County Councils usually provide education, care in the community, and transport services. In contrast, services under the remit of District Councils are rubbish collection, housing, and planning. When a Unity council is created the Institute for Government describes it as providing ‘all these functions within its particular area’.
However, Colin Leach and Colin Copus from the London School of Economics have disputed the merits of this approach. They sounded the alarm about this move towards a one-tier approach as, to their mind, it caused a ‘political and public’ headache and disparagingly described it as an ‘insidious reorganisation by stealth’.
Bigger is better?
The old adage is ‘bigger is better’. Some have argued that the two theories of a ‘two-tier government with district and county councils is more effective’, and that ‘bigger government is better government’. Vic Lent from Sussex Bylines in his late July 2024 article passionately championed the move from the district and county council system towards a unitary council. He argued that there are currently ‘too many layers of local government in England’. However, the Unity Council approach has again been disputed by the London School of Economics when it looked at half-a-decade of analysis and claimed Unity Councils are ‘unsupported consistently and conclusively’. It claims that both approaches have ‘unacceptable consequences for the health of local democracy by having a detrimental impact on
- electorate turnout
- voter interaction, and
- ‘trust’ in local politicians
Paradise lost in Eden?
Turning to analyse one of the four areas affected by the joining together of the Unity Council in the former Eden District Council area of Cumbria, there have been numerous issues at the heart of the dispute over the bin collection service. In September 2023 the GMB Union became involved when colleagues such as ‘hygiene operatives, loaders, and drivers’, employed under an underlying contractual arrangement between Westmorland and Furness Unity Council and Urbasser. This company was selected to provide ‘environmental and waste services’ to Eden District Council area residents, including the collection of bin refuse. The workforce decided to withdraw their labour as they felt they were not receiving a fair rate of pay. Many colleagues had been struggling with the pressures brought about by the ‘cost of living crisis’, and it seems to have been part of a campaign to persuade the Council to increase their rate of pay. When the workers elected to walk-out in October 2023 it caused bin services in the area to be, what the Council described as, ‘delayed’ to the annoyance of local residents. However, no resolution could be found to the impasse for twelve weeks. Bonfire Night passed and time marched into mid-November 2023 with both sides of the dispute digging in their heels and refusing to budge. Eventually, the strike was called to a halt heading into the Christmas week of December 2023.
“Recycling” and “green waste” services were unaffected by the decision by colleagues to withdraw their labour and those services seem to have continued as normal. However, these services have also been of concern in the Eden Council area of Cumbria where there were protests in 2022 as residents felt that garden waste disposal and recycling services were inadequate. It seems like no matter how the Council is structured, there is a high possibility that bin collection services will be afflicted by disputes and delays.
Light at the end of the tunnel
Vic Lent struck an optimistic tone in his article. For the sake of the Cumbrian residents adversely affected by this latest round of bin disruption the reader can only hope he is right in his view that despite early teething troubles, ‘challenges and costs’, there may be sunnier weather ahead in terms of a satisfactory outcome to this and the resumption of the bin collection services. However, in Cumbria it seems like the make-up of the Council, whether District, Council, Borough or Unity, make little difference to delayed bin services caused by trade union-backed industrial action where a contractual arrangement underpins the provision of these important public services.
