Auditors called for more openness about the changes at Brighton and Hove City Council’s rubbish and recycling service over the past 18 months.
A written report to councillors said that problems in the service, known as Cityclean, had led to a judgment of “significant weakness” in governance although this had now been “substantially addressed”.
The report said: “The auditor has recommended that progress reports and lessons learned are formally reported to members as soon as practicably possible.”
At a meeting at Hove Town Hall, two external auditors were told that a progress and performance report was due to be presented to the council’s cabinet in May.
The update will come some 18 months after a £266,000 independent report by barrister Aileen McColgan was presented to councillors.
Members unanimously agreed to adopt all 10 recommendations in the report which described deep-rooted issues with bullying, race discrimination, sexual harassment, intimidation and violence in the Cityclean service.
The barrister’s report said that managers were unable to deal with problems effectively because of the realistic threat of industrial action.
Since the report was published, work has been under way to change the workplace culture.
After one of the auditors spoke of the need for openness about the changes at Cityclean yesterday (Tuesday 28 January), councillors also spoke about making more information publicly available.
Conservative councillor Anne Meadows told the council’s Audit, Standards and General Purposes Committee that public oversight was essential because information had been lacking.
Councillor Meadows said: “I’m thankful the auditors have said they think it should be more publicly available for us – information about how the action plan is going, etc. That is really helpful for those members who are not in the cabinet.”
Labour councillor Tim Rowkins, the cabinet member for net zero and environmental services, said that the Cityclean report made “horrifying reading” but the action plan had been substantially addressed.
He said that a progress report was expected to go before the cabinet in May and this would allow more scrutiny by members and the public.
Councillor Rowkins said: “I’ve seen first-hand the impact that some of the issues raised in the report have had on staff, with people being generally traumatised.
“I want to be really clear. Although some of the issues raised in the report were extremely severe, the report essentially describes a very large impact from a relatively small group of individuals.
“We have excellent staff teams across our services who get up – and I’ve been out with them myself many times – at 3.30 in the morning and go out to keep our city in a presentable format and do so with all of the enthusiasm and professionalism you would expect.”
We all know that the issue is incompetence and multiple management appointments. The aging fleet is being replaced with electric carts that really are not capable of the job and keep breaking down. The in-house repair service personnel are not allowed to fix them as they are under warranty. This does nothing to help with efficiency but where are the financial penalties for this issue? They either keep the incompetent managers or promote them. The losers are the Council Taxpayers!
Ah yes but its “green”.
“bullying, race discrimination, sexual harassment, intimidation and violence” are because the electric vehicles can’t be repaired by the in house servicing team?
I agree with Nico here, the issue at CityClean has been clearly defined to be more than just the vehicles; although the repair arrangements do sound frustrating if they can’t be done in-house, but does sound like an issue that resolves over time, namely after warranty?
The bins have been a problem in the city for about 30 years, the whole thing is ridiculous (and it stinks 🙂 ).
And what investigation of the allegations of political interference in the 2023 KC ever took place. The council paid over a quarter of a million pounds for the KC report a couple of years ago, and although they’ve adopted key recommendations nobody has ever really got to the bottom of what the alleged political interference was, who was involved, or why? Maybe I’m just cynical, but from the outside looking in it does look like a Labour council unwilling to investigate councillors actions under a previous Labour administration.
Why was the 2019 Gerry Doherty report never published (even a redacted copy), and why were meetings held behind closed doors. The whole thing is in the public interest because it has cost residents huge amounts of money over the years, as well as service disruption for decades.
The service needs to be overhauled, and things need to be improved, but there’s still an air that councillors are not being open and transparent and they are not owning past failing alluded to in investigations that have alreadt happened. Until there’s honesty and genuine openness on it I fear things will just stay the same.
Another instance of the council not doing what they proclaim to be doing, i.e. transparency has to be requested by auditors and a councillor, so much for our transparent council. And let’s not forget the widespread fraud that went on by bin collectors and their managers, when for years they were allowed to go home early everyday, hours before their shift finished if their round was done, with the absolute cheek of repeated strikes asking for more money, which the council gave them in the end, as well as countless overtime payments. Personally, as a council tax payer, I’d like this wide-scale fraud looked in to as well please.
It was looked into Josephine. Did you have a chance to read the report that was independently produced? It is a shocking read.
Hi Benjamin – the 2019 Gerry Doherty report was never published. Frank le Duc has done a couple of excellent articles on it in the past. Meetings were held behind closed doors back then when that report was discussed, and media reports refer to the report containing references to a sectioned entitled “doing deals”.
When the current Labour administration were asked if they would investigate the allegations of political interference referred to in the 2023 report, they refused to do that. They have taken forward the recommendation of removing councillors from appeal panels, but the political interference alluded to in the KC report and media articles about the Gerry Doherty report alludes to it potentially extending beyond that.
The 2019 meeting that discussed the Gerry Doherty report (which it’s reported relates to a GMB staff dispute) seems to have been chaired by a Labour councillor who is / was a GMB members (3 out of 4 Labour councillors at the 2019 meeting were GMB members). It strikes me as odd that a councillor who is a GMB member, and who may potentially have received funding towards their election campaign from GMB (as can often be the case as GMB frequently fund Labour), chaired a meeting about a report discussing a dispute between the GMB and City Clean management. It sounds to me like a conflict of interest and there are lots of things I don’t think have been looked into as fully as they should Benjamin.
Very right, the KC report was published, which was the one I was thinking of.
No fraud committed job was task and finish, if you desire an investigation may I suggest you target employees working from home now that’s fraud
Well the past 6 months I’ve worked there I’d say it’s 40% old vehicles that don’t work and 40% useless management who couldn’t organise a booze up in a pub and about 20% some staff who treat the job like it’s a hobby…
And a 100% horrible union