Date: Sun Dec 03, 2006 12:21 am. By: Andy Hall
On 2006-12-03 00:26:00 +0000, John Beardmore said:
That you may, but if you want what you are attempting to do to be effective as opposed to a feel good, then it needs to be low hanging fruit to almost everybody. The most effective ways to achieve that is to make it financially attractive to people and to tell the truth. Until that happens, it is rather pointless. Well telling the truth is good. Paying people to do it out of the taxes they pay the council seems a bit daft if they can 'just do it' though. I thought you were opposed to needless bureaucracy ?
I am, which is why I suggested taking the councils out of the food chain on this altogether and sitting them on the sidelines simply arranging licensing.
Hmmm... Well - in a sense it's arguable that this is pretty much what they do already.
No, they are in the middle of the food chain between supplier and customer.
Think there'll be any less bureaucracy if they have to issue more licenses ?
There is a substantial difference between administering a supply contract and arranging licensing.
The waste legislation makes that quite difficult these days. This may be why embarrassing truths occasionally come to light.
Such as recycling in landfill...
There may be the odd such even, but what % are you claiming goes to landfill ?
I haven't claimed any percentage.
If there is a requirement to collect a greater range of stuff without doubling up road miles and staff, it may amount to that. Then the premise is wrong in the first place. Well - so you say. Most people seem to disagree.
Have you made a survey?
No, but I've certainly talked to lots about it. You are the first one with your agenda.
I don't have agendas, unless you call freedom of choice an agenda.
If the objective can't be acheved without reducing the level and quality of service, then the objective is wrong. Arguably collecting a greater number streams is improving the level and quality of service.
Greater choice for the customer is the important thing.
The only important thing ?
The important thing. That doesn't exclude other items as already described.
You make it sound terribly black and white.
Actually not, but I've always found black and white to be much clearer than murky green and pink.
I am almost as sure that there is nothing that requires the householder as opposed to the collection outfit sorting out what needs to be recycled and what doesn't. Indeed, but most people recognise that separation at source is easier than separation after mixing and covering in slime. That's for the contractor to figure out. It is what they are being paid a great deal to do. A lot of though has gone in to this down the years. Just trying to make it somebody elses problem doesn't cut it.
It's amazing what can be achieved when there is money to be made or lost or jobs to be lost. It focuses peoples' minds very well indeed.
None of which means that separation at source is a big problem, or that other alternatives are more efficient.
A matter of customer choice. Some may wish to buy a service where they separate materials at source; others may prefer the operator to deal with it. Operators with the most efficient businesses and lowest costs, consistent with supplying the customer with what he wants to buy will succeed.
Nobody wants to pay a lot for waste disposal, least of all you. The amount they are paid is significant, but the volume of material they handle is vast, so obliging them to implement a high tech energy intensive process that ultimately you'd have to pay more for doesn't seem like much of a proposal to me.
If one takes the overhead of the local authorities out of the loop there is a great deal more money to spend on the service product itself rather than measurement thereof.
I thought you wanted them in a licensing role ?
I don't particularly want them in any role. One option may be for them to be involved in licensing and of course that would result in a lower cost because of staff reductions. Another may be to regionalise or centralise licensing to reduce duplication of administration.
OTOH, if the expectation of the LA is that I should do this, then I am looking for a reduction in the price I pay. Heaven forefend you make little effort for the common good.
I make a great deal of effort for "the common good". You should see my P60.
You mean you pay some tax and grumble about it.
I pay quite a lot of tax and don't grumble about it. At least my accountant deals with the government on that one.
I don't have the time, motivation or interest to sort through a whole pile of different types of assorted plastic crap to determine what is what and what should go where. Yet you have the time, motivation or interest to consume the contents. It seems unfortunate that expect to gain the benefit of modern materials, but are utterly reluctant do deal with the consequences of their use. I am not reluctant to deal with the consequences of their use at all. I pay a great deal of money to the LA to do the job for me. Well - you pay some money for it. That it's a "great deal" is a subjective observation unless you want to come over all numerate ?
In terms of what I get for what I pay, it's a very bad deal.
Well - you seem completely unable to demonstrate this re waste !
With council tax running well into 4 figures, it's not only demonstrated for waste but across the board.
Either they do the job and I pay them to do it, or I do it and pay them a lot less. I don't expect to pay *and* do their work for In legal terms, what you expect is neither here nor there in a sense, and as a last resort, you could always try and be a bit flexible.
Why? It's by making fudges and accomodations to cover the incompetence and fat of local and central government that has taken us to the point of more than one on five people working in these areas - one in three in some regions.
Which regions ?
Northern Ireland is at around 30%
And I assume you don't mean that 1 in 5 work in town halls.
Did I say that?
Maybe if you include the NHS etc you might be getting up there ?
I included all public sector as indicated above. The NHS, in terms of numbers employed, (and many other things) is a disgrace. It is the third largest employer worldwide after the Chinese Army and Indian Railways.
I don't mind paying for things for one moment. I do object to paying for unnecessary overhead and incompetence.
I'm not sure how much of that there is.
I am.
Waste collection around here generally used to consist of collecting the ash from peoples grates and throwing it down a hole. Things have moved on in that we consume more, and (society / environmentalists / academics / legislators), can see more benefit to separation and recycling. Separation is most cheaply done at source by those who aren't too proud or 'up them selves' to do it. While for time being at least you have the option of having all your waste thrown down a hole, if you want other people to separate it, in the end you may be required
I should have the choice of whether I want to do it or to buy a service where someone else does it.
I'm still unconvinced.
That's up to you. With a choice of suppliers, you could continue to buy from the local authority and I could negotiate my own deals. Then we'd both be happy..... or are you saying that in order to achieve some objectinve or other, people should be denied freedom of choice?
These people are paid a great deal of money. By whose standards ? By any standards. Subjective tosh.
In comparison with what they deserve, it's a great deal of money. That's comparative.
Only if you can show me numbers rather than strength of emotion.
Council tax payments in 4 figures? The UK average for band H is now 2.5k. Even Band C is over 1k.
Moreover, they know, or should know what facilities they have for dealing with different types of material. The LA may have very few facilities - they sub out the process usually, remember ? I'm not sure that the subcontractors are paid enough to hand sort or invest in the necessary machinery, especially if contracts only last 5 years or so. So the obvious solution is to take the LA out of the loop and allow multiple contractors to compete for the business on household by household basis. You and Huge may find this "obvious", but others amongst I can see obvious problems with it.
I can understand that some people have trouble thinking outside the box whether it be by fear, IQ or lack of imagination.
Maybe some of the things out of the box are just a bit crap ?
I think you are confusing this with what's in the (recycling) box.
This would allow a range of choice in terms of price and service and people can choose which they want. But not necessarily any more efficiently from an environmental point of view.
Having the customer bought in to what is reasonable is the key issue. That won't be achieved by greenwashing, coercion, lying or any of the other techniques employed by the environmental lobby. Unfortunately, because they seem to believe their own BS, they imagine that everyone else will. Sorry but it won't fly.
I don't think the quantitative work done around life cycle analysis is BS. While imperfect, it seems to me to be the best tool we have, and certainly better than your angst and gut feeling.
I don't have any angst at all. I am quite certain of my outlook on this. At the point that there are convincing explanations and practices, this is worthy of more detailed analysis. Until then it isn't worth the effort.
The solution is to make it financially appealing and to provide choice. Once that is done, people who want to play the green game can do so, people who want to buy a comprehensive service of someone else doing the rubbish processing can do that.
It's really not very difficult.
Nor is it likely to be a lower environmental footprint solution.
That depends on your criteria for measuring environmental footprint. Since the important thing is the total outcome, it is hard to measure different approaches anyway.
Quite reasonably I want and expect them to deal with it. What you regard as reasonable is up to you, but I don't hear the sound of you scurrying off to tender for this sort of processing, well paid though you maintain it to be ! There are a whole range of business activities that one can do. I could probably make a lot of money being a barrister as well, or perhaps a dentist, but it wasn't a path I chose. However, both seem to be quite lucrative. Fair point - but the grass is always greener. What you regard as "a great deal of money" may look a bit sick when you have 250,000 tons of waste to separate and rehome.
I don't see things in such limited ways.
Nor do you propose any better alternatives !
I already have. Multiple operators, multiple suppliers, multiple services and freedom to choose. That's a lot better.
I'm sorry but there is the equivalent of blood on the hands of both central and local government. EU Directives are not generally prescriptive in terms of the detail of implementation and neither is their transposition into UK statute. There is a lot more flexibility, I am sure than they would have people believe. There may be flexibility in method, but perhaps less in targets, politics and culture. .. or in ability, I suspect. Bit of a cheap shot I think. Just an observation. Sometimes the truth is painful.
Not especially consistent with my own.
Ah well. Perhaps I can see through the BS more easily.
I expect that they will be mandating the collection of cow farts next. Certainly changing the intestinal flora has been suggested, and may be practicable.
I don't believe it. Yes actually I do.
Good. It's true.
Sigh.....
This is typical of the kind of Directive that the EU should not be doing across the whole continent. It should be a matter for individual government.
:) I couldn't possibly comment !
Yet another reason that the whole game is so discredited.
I don't think so. The EU seem to be leading the way in moves towards sustainable living. I can live with that.
The EU couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery with the glasses laid out and the taps turned on.
It isn't to do with sustainable living at all, but unnecessary interference with individual freedom in areas that are way beyond its remit of facilitating free trade.
It is an illustration that this is all part and parcel of the disease in local and central government and how there needs to be a massive cull of headcount. I'm not sure that sacking a bung of people makes the remainder more honest. Probably more like more paranoid and devious. That's fine. I wasn't setting limits on how many should be sacked. There are many departments where running it down to zero would be just fine. To you perhaps...
There are so many areas of duplication and waste that I often think that it would be better to shut the whole lot down and start again.
Well as ever, show us your detailed proposals. In the mean time I'll work with whoever I can to get whatever results are achievable.
Be my guest, but don't expect too much interest.
Public sector employment is back to over 20% for the UK as a whole - nearly 30% in Northern Ireland and 25% in Scotland, the North East and Wales. Nearly 60% of them had been in their jobs for over 5 years. Including presumably the NHS and all levels of teaching ?
Government figures.
OK - can't say I'm bothered, especially by their being in post for over 5 years. I don't see any big advantage to a 'hire and fire' culture.
I do. It focuses the mind, focuses activity and improves outcome by eliminating the unemployable.
There is absolutely no justification for this in terms of numbers or of lack of mobility. Not sure what mobility has to do with it.
I don't suppose that you do. It is inflexibility that is one of the largest factors in the demise of enterprises. In the public sector, they are continually propped up with public money. In the private sector, they go broke.
Flexibility is good, but there is no point in change for its own sake.
On the contrary, there is every point. People become fat, dumb and happy and inefficient if left doing the same thing year in, year out.
Under 10% of the workforce at the outside should be in the public sector Not sure what is so magic about 10% ? I'm less concerned by the size of the sector than what it is doing.
I picked the number only because it implies cutting the present level by a half and to illustrate that the cuts need to be swingeing - not just tinkering with a little natural wastage here and there.
Can't get excited at any of this.
Are you sure you're not a local government employee?
Absolutely. There is no inconsistency in what I said. Possibly not - it's just not very obvious to the reader. You just need to read what I wrote rather than what you think I wrote. I read it with quite enough care thanks.
Good. Then you shouldn't be confused any more.
I'm not. It was always a crap assertion that bore no scrutiny.
I think you've lost yourself.
Not really. Whether or not criminal offences as commonly understood have been committed is neother here nor there. The issue is that these people have the stewardship of our money, yet their standard of performance is very weak indeed as witnessed by the poor value for money. Well - investigate away if you think you have a case and time to spare.
I pay others to do that.
And I suppose you feel that because there aren't burning crosses outside town halls every day, they aren't doing their job ?
Would you consider that bringing in external firms of consultants to do the jobs that they are supposed to be doing and hence doubling the cost is good stewardship of customers' money? I don't.
There are plenty of opportunities for the hangers on to be making money. Which "hangers on" ? Extra people brought into departments permanently or temporarily. Typically don't make huge sums ?
Outside firms of management consultants? Are you kidding?
Well - speaking as an environmental consultant, I don't in general.
Ah, so now we're getting to it.
Firms of management consultants ineptly making the decisions that the employees should be making but aren't. I'm not sure this is too common.
I'm sure that it's exceedingly common. I know of 4 local authorities within a 20 mile radius who spend vast sums on it.
Well - if you've got a complaint, why not make it ?
Oh, I have, as have many others.
The employment of each extra person in the LA to run the charade is a fraud in itself. I'm not convinced. At one in five of the workforce and rising, each person unnecessarily employed in this area, which is completely a cost centre and not a profit centre in terms of UK PLC is a fraud. Without having an inventory of what they do, it's hard to say what I'd rather wasn't being done. I'm not sure there is too much, and I'm not sure that waste would be on my list.
Almost every department, last time I asked.
What ? They all said they were overmanned and committing fraud ? Or did you conduct a full scale independent time and motion study ?
One only needs to look at money in and results out to figure that one out - it really isn't that difficult.
They might well, if there is one. I prefer to deal with these things at a higher level. Things are more likely happen as a result of pressure from above. Maybe, but scrutiny can be fairly effective if you get them on the case. It's their job, where as the CEO may opt to bury bad news or delegate investigation to the officers responsible for the problem. Been there, got the T-shirt. That depends on how you go about it. Yes. So how do you stop the CEO doing that ?
He is still accountable and very sensitive about his position and empire.
Yes - though I suspect you'd have to go to the press to make them very sensitive.
If that's the appropriate course of action, then so be it.
There is no control over their staffing and they are in the payment path between customer and supplier. Plenty of fat to trim there.
Evidence beyond assertion ?
Money in, (lack of) results out.