URL: https://democracy.canterbury.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=1684

Decision Maker: Cabinet

Outcome:

Is Key Decision?: No

Is Callable In?: No

Purpose:

Content: Canenco Board Chair Marie Royle, and David Maidman, Managing Director of Canenco, gave a presentation that covered the main points of the report and service delivery plan 2026/27.   Points they covered included:   The report was both a look back and a look forward, covering objectives for the year ahead, key challenges, and areas of focus such as employee well-being, retainment and training, and achieving and retaining relevant ISO awards, which gave assurance on how the company was being run. They highlighted that company has worked well with the council’s resident engagement panel in dealing with issues for tenants.   The committee members discussed the report and presentation, received clarifications from the officers, asked questions and made points, including the following:   ·         To monitor the company’s performance and judge whether it had the resources to meet its targets, members needed clear information identifying its key performance indicators (KPIs) and its performance against them. ·         The service delivery plan should include a comprehensive set of performance data. This was missing, although the report did refer to data being seen by Scrutiny Committee and Cabinet.  ·         The report referred to the Lead Contract Manager’s six-monthly report to Cabinet, which would include performance data, but this did not appear to have been made in recent months.   ·         Members’ primary source of performance data for Canenco was currently Freedom of Information requests (FOIs). ·         The draft service delivery plan did include information on a number of worthy projects, but it was not a comprehensive report on previous and future performance.  ·         Had Cabinet signed off on a reduced number of KPIs for the contracts? If so, had other councillors been made aware of this when this decision was taken? ·         It would be good to have all the company information in one regular, basic report that could then be considered by all the relevant committees and Cabinet.  ·         Six-monthly performance reports used to go to Scrutiny Committee, but since that committee had changed its format to themed meetings, that performance report now went once a year under the ‘Service’ theme. It had last gone to Scrutiny Committee in June 2025. ·         The company oversight matrix (noted at the meeting in December 2025) set out which committee considered which aspect of company oversight. ·         There would be an annual report to Cabinet on performance, alongside a progress report each autumn.  ·         Members agreed that whichever committee or Cabinet considered the Canenco reports, the KPIs and performance against them needed to be clearly listed. The information in the report at section 6 did not give any detail. A total of 27 KPIs were alluded to across the various Canenco contracts but not named. ·         Activities in the service delivery plan should be linked to performance. It should be clear which activities would achieve which indictors / targets / overall goals. ·         It was very positive that a member of staff was completing his apprenticeship this September and would be taken on permanently, with another apprenticeship then being made available. ·         Needles were generally found in largeish groups, not in ones and twos, and not in any specific pattern or regular area. Finds were sporadic. Crews were trained to identify, report and then safely collect. Data on potential hotspots was passed to the Council and the Community Safety Unit so that a holistic approach could be taken. ·         Any member with a specific request regarding graffiti removal should provide the details to the team / the Lead Contracts Manager so that they could be logged, tracked and processed. Not all graffiti incidents were referred to Canenco: all were logged by enforcement first and then allocated. ·         Members would appreciate information on the KPI for graffiti removal – speed of removal, or other relevant measures ·         99.8% of all collections (individual and communal) were correctly removed. ·         The deadline for the national requirement to have weekly food waste collections in place was 31st March. Additional caddies would be delivered from 14 March. March collections would start on 30th and there would be a separate round just collecting from communal settings.  ·         There was a communications plan in place regarding food waste reminders for later in the year. ·         The Council was providing 180 wheeled bins for food waste at communal sites. All flats were being supplied with kitchen caddies, which could be carried down to communal bins. Leaflets were also being distributed to explain the system. The food waste wheeled bins were grey with orange lids. ·         There was no standard benchmark for missed bins as different providers collated and reported the data in various ways. In the Canterbury district, everything reported as a missed bin by a resident was classified as such, but some authorities flexed the statistic by classing anything collected late but within 36 hours as ‘not missed’. ·         Going forward, the company would be able to record whether there were higher missed collection rates at communal settings.  ·         The service was a big expense for council tax payers, so it would be good to have the KPIs visible on the Council’s website. ·         A comparison of Canenco’s performance against the performance of other similar providers would be very useful, as well as performance compared to previous year if the data was available. It was agreed this would be provided in the next service delivery plan. ·         Could more be done to prevent vehicle fires caused by lithium batteries? Did the company have a prevention plan? ·         Vapes were the main cause of bin /vehicle fires. The company’s crews worked hard to deal with fires quickly and reduce damage when they occurred.  ·         The Lead Contract Manager was working with the Council’s Comms team on a new campaign for the coming year on waste, and warning customers of the dangers of poor disposal of batteries / vapes would be included. It was suggested information on the cost to taxpayers of poor battery disposal should also be included.  ·         It was too early to spot any positives from the recent ban on sales of disposable vapes. If vapes were put into the general rubbish it was very difficult to identify them. ·         The organisational chart on page 20 did not feature a procurement manager. This had been identified as a priority by Audit Committee. Was recruitment underway?  ·         The company was in the process of recruiting a procurement manager, but at present the role was being covered by an external contractor, hence the post did not feature on the employee organisational chart. ·         Did the growth items (£800,000 in additional works) reflect an increase in scope or just an increase in cost? ·         Officers would go through the detail with members later in the year to identify what was new and what was increased cost, but for example, vehicle costs would be new as the Council provided the vehicles to Canenco.  ·         The Lead Contract Manager would get back to members on how much it cost the Council each year to clean graffiti. There were two sets of costs: one linked to the Council’s own graffiti team, and one linked to Canenco’s activities. ·         Could the Council let residents know via social media how much it cost each year to clean graffiti? ·         The Council enforcement team / graffiti team and the Canenco graffiti team worked very closely together, with Canenco quickly picking up tags and offensive graffiti. Officers would look at how best to accurately quantify the costs. ·         The Council graffiti team did the quick-win removals, the lower-level incidents and worked with landowners to remove graffiti on private land. The more complex cleans were done by Canenco. Enforcement action was also the remit of the Council team. ·         The chewing gum producers were responsible for funding Keep Britain Tidy’s gum removal grants. A bid was currently being worked on and would, if successful, fund additional short-term resource for city centres. The Lead Contract Manager agreed to try to estimate how much it would cost per year for gum removal.  ·         Canenco teams engaged with the Council’s environment team concerning grass cutting, areas to leave uncut and initiatives like ‘no mow May’. The environment team let Canenco know about local initiatives and where bulbs were planted, etc. This information was put on the system, with links to maps and the routes the Canenco crews followed on the ground. The mowing schedules generally adhered to, with two ‘conservation cuts’ per year, were more effective than simply not mowing in May.  ·         Were fly-tip hotspots being regularly checked and cleared by Canenco crews? Was an action plan needed for this? The Vauxhall Avenue situation was now being reviewed on a weekly basis, but it had become a significant problem. ·         Over-flowing bins in some areas in the summer were still a problem and it was reported that a KPI had not been met in the summer months. Bins could be emptied 8-10 times a day but would still, at times, be full. Bigger bins had been looked at as an option, but these needed bigger vehicle access to service them, which in the busiest areas on the coast and in the city was not possible. ·         Canenco has applied to the Armed Forces Covenant for a bronze award. Some targeted actions would be worked up after achieving this. ·         The £84,000 growth bid on contractual conditions of employment was to cover the additional leave days accrued by members of staff staying with the company for more than three years. So it was a positive that staff werebeing retained by the company. ·         Placement of skips in areas that suffered repeated fly-tipping might be seen to encourage more fly-tipping and would be an unbudgeted cost. Colleagues in the housing team had worked previously with contractors on local ‘clear up days’, and the Council did support student clearance days when students were allowed to leave out bulky waste at the end of the academic year.   The committee requested that Cabinet pay special regard to their comments and questions on the lack of Key Performance Indicators within the current service delivery plan.    The committee requested that Cabinet consider requiring an updated service delivery plan which would include a clear listing of the 27 KPIs referred to, and performance against them.    It was proposed, seconded and when put to a vote    RECOMMENDED    to Cabinet:    That the Canenco Service Delivery Plan for 2026/27 be approved.    Record of the vote:  For (6): Councillors Brady, Buckman, Campbell, Forrester, Jupe, Watkins Against (0): none Abstained (0): none

Date of Decision: February 26, 2026