Case 1 Valley District Council Cleansing Services Introduction The party was in full swing.

Everyone who was anyone connected with the Cleaning Service at Valley District Council was there. Dustmen, street sweepers and civic amenity site workers ru ed shoulders with the mayor, councilors and chief officer. !hy" To cele rate the success of Valley Council#s $Cleaner Environment# campaign. %t all egan some 1& years ago when Teresa 'ew, the chairperson of the Environment Committee, visited the (nited States on holiday. She had used the opportunity to call in on the $)eep *merica +eautiful# organi,ation, and had een impressed y their systems approach to reducing the sources and causes of litter. Each source should e specifically targeted and improved through a com ination of awareness, education, enforcement and facilities such as litter ins. -apid response to litter accumulation was also part of the organi,ation#s approach, since it had een shown that a cleaner environment tended to remain clean, while litter promoted yet more littering. .ne particular point that stuck in Teresa#s mind was if you don#t measure the incidence of littering, you will never know if you are wasting your ratepayer#s money, and you won#t know how to focus your campaign#. *s a hard/nosed accruement, this had particular appeal to Teresa. .n returning home, Teresa made a eeline for the Tidy +ritain 0roup 1T+02. This is an independent charity, part/funded y the Department for the Environment, 3ood and -ural *ffairs with a specific rief as the national litter a atement agency. T+0 works through si4 initiatives5 *wards / recogni,ing e4cellence through campaigns such as +ritain in +loom Consultancy 6 though the group#s Environmental -esearch and Consultancy (nit -esearch 6 such as developing standard ways to measure litter 7eople and 7laces 6 working at community level Campaigning 6 to raise awareness and the need for action Education 6 targeting schools in particular.

T+0 offered invalua le assistance, and recommended use of the international $Tidyman# sym ol shown in 3igure 89.1

Several years and seemingly innumera le meetings later, Valley Council had adopted a complete package of measures proposed y the Environment Committee. Today#s party was eing held to cele rate the achievements these measures had made, that is a 8& per cent reduction in the litter count from an average :; pieces to the current 1<. Valley District Council is one of three local authorities in a country in South !ales. The Council#s area includes one town of moderate si,e, four smaller towns and over 8& villages. The population and most of the industry is concentrated in the south. The council undertakes the normal range of services re=uired of a non/metropolitan district council. Services include recreation and tourism, environmental health, housing, planning and economic development, and cleaning services. The Cleaning Service asically undertakes refuse collection and disposal and street cleaning. %t runs civic amenity sites where garden waste and ulky o >ects can e left, and container services comprising oth compacted waste from, office uildings and other waste removed in open skips. The Cleaning Service has een su >ected to compulsory competitive tendering and the compactor vehicles used for refuse collection are now run y contractors, with crews supplied y the District Council. 3or operating purpose, the Cleansing Service is divided into three depot areas, known simply as 'orth, ?id and South, each controlled y a superintendent. Street sweepers at Valley have a routine which re=uires them to cover all high street areas on their $ eat# once per day. .ther areas are covered in a specified fre=uency which ranges from twice per week to once per month. *ctual sweeping may not e needed, so the sweepers spend much of their time picking up litter with a scoop which

looks like a domestic dustpan with a long handle. Their other e=uipment comprises a trolley with ins and rushes. * proportion of each day is left to the sweepers# own initiative. During these periods, sweepers can clean whatever area they think has highest priority. Since all of the sweepers live close to or on their eat, this has proved =uite successful. *part from competitive tendering, several innovations have een undertaken in the last few years. These include new crew si,es, different plastic ags, trials with wheeled containers for usiness uses, merchandised sweeping in the ?id region, more litter ins of various types, and most recently $doggy# ins. The doggy in scheme had en>oyed priority since a private mem er#s ill had gone through 7arliament. * dog owner who did not clear up after their pet could now e fined up to @1&&&. Councilors and officers were now considering how the law could now e enforced, and in the light of the success with the litter campaign, how it might e measured. .ver the past two years, Valley had em arked on a Total Auality programmed Senior and middle/ranking officers had attended courses and were encouraged to adopt a $TA# philosophy y ecoming more $customer focused#. Several of the courses, however, made use of manufacturing e4ample and it was always clear how the tools and techni=ues discussed in the course could e adopted for use within the District Council. Measuring performance The principal performance measures used at Valley are ased on =uality and productivity. 7roductivity is measured y sacks per man per year, and y cost per sack and per tonne removed. !here possi le, these figures are compared with corresponding national data, ut where is always controversy over such comparisons. *reas with relatively poor performance go to considera le lengths to e4plain why they are $different#. $Auality# of the Cleaning Service has traditionally een measured y complaints received. * recent analysis is shown in Ta le 89.1 for the ?id depot area.

Table 43.1 Analysis of complaints received during 20 days last month

omplaint #ate collection Missed collection $pillage %ro&en bags %ags not delivered #itter 'og fouling 'angerous driving All other

!umber received 1BC :D CD :: <; 1& 18 B 1C

Ma"imum in 1 day 91 8 1< 9 < 8 : : :

Since her visit to the (nited States, Teresa had een convinced that measurement was fundamental to the success of the litter campaign, and insisted that additional measures to these must e devised. Eventually, the CEE*'%'0 Service decided on a modified version of methods recommended y T+0 and $)eep *merica eautiful#. This re=uired that 1: sites should e selected, each comprising :&& meters of typical high street pavement. Each day, four of the sites would e selected at random, and all pieces of litter would e counted, whatever their si,e, etween the uilding line and the roadside edge of the gutter. Thus sweetpapers, cigarette ends, matches, soft drink cans and newspaper pages each count as one item. The sites themselves were kept secret, known only to four people within the Cleaning Service. Even the method used was kept confidential to a selection of council officers and councilors on the Environment Committee. %n particular, neither the method nor the sites were disclosed to street sweepers or to shopowners ad>oining the sites. Ta le 89.: gives a sample of recent measures. At the party During the party the Chairman of Valley District Council, )evin *nderson, was introduced to staff y the Chief Cleaning .fficer, Stan Verrier, in talking to one of the street sweepers, *.F. !illams, Councillor *nderson asked *.F. what he thought a out the street sweepers, *.F. replied that he thought that while some areas had improved, $there are still some very ad streets where people >ust don#t seem to care. 'o matter how many times % care them, they#re always a mess the ne4t day.#

Table 43.2 Items of litter by sample area

(ee& 1

(ee& 2

(ee& 3

(ee& 4

(ee& )

?on Tue !ed Thurs 3ri ?on Tue !ed Thurs 3ri ?on Tue !ed Thurs 3ri ?on Tue !ed Thurs 3ri ?on Tue !ed Thurs 3ri

Area S ? S ' S ? S ' S ? ' ? ? ? ' S ? S ? ? S ' ? S S

Items 111 9 :D 11 :; D& :8 1D 11 8 1B 1B 18 1< :1 8D D :: 1B 1D ;9 9 B8 1B :;

Area ' ' ? S ' ' ? ' S S ? ' S ? S ? ? ' ' ? S ? ' S S

Items 1& 1: 1B 9< < 19 :8 11 :: 1B 188 19 :B 1C 9; CC 1< D 19 B 88 1; D :& :D

Area ? ' ' ? S ' ? S S ' S ? ? ' ' S ' S S ' ? ? S ' S

Items 1&D C :& <D 9 18 18 :; 1: 1 88 1& B 1D 1& C9 1B 9B :8 8 <& 1C :B 1& 98

Area S ' ? ' ' ' S ' ' S ' S S S ? ? ? ' ? ? ? ' ? ' ?

Items D& 1< 18 19 B 1B 1C 11 < :C C :C 98 91 1: 1:& 1; 1; < 1C 1:; 1& 9C 1D ;

Councilor *nderson took Stan to one side, and said $7eople like *.F. are >ust trying to protect their >o s. !e have to translate the success of our litter campaign into cost reductions that we can pass on to the ratepayers.# %n another part of the room, Councillor Teresa 'ew was speaking to two of the street sweepers. $+ut how do you know that there has een a 8& per cent reduction in litter"# asked Dai Fones. This put Teresa on the spot. $!e have a measurement system#, she said, $ ut you#ll have to ask ?r Verrier how it works.# This rather spoiled the evening for the two sweepers. !ere they eing spied on, they wondered" Eater on the party, Stan Verrier was speaking to Councillor 0areth Edwards, a management consultant and mem er of the Environment Committee. 0areth suggested to Stan that the litter data could e plotted on an S7C chart. Stan said that he had heard a out S7C at the Total Auality course, ut was reluctant to try S7C ecause $no one in Cleaning Services is a statistician#. 0areth then said to Stan that S7C really stands for

making a process $Sta le, 7redicta le and in Control#. $% had never thought of it that way#, said Stan. *uestions 1 Should the measurement system for the litter campaign e more widely understood" : !hat do you think a out Councillor *nderson#s remarks a out $protecting >o s#" 9 Gow could S7C e used at Valley to analyse the num er of litter items y sample area" 1Clue5 use a 'um er of Defects 1c2 control chart, and analyse the data y depot area ignoring ?ondays.2

!hat do the control charts suggest a out the litter process at Valley"