Appendix 4 – Information provided by the Director of Communities, Economy and Transport.

  1. Digital Exclusion and the Equality Impact Assessment:
    • The concern regarding digital exclusion is noted, but a weekday telephone service is regarded as an appropriate accessible alternative. The waste team will monitor this level of service and can review if necessary. The waste team will also ensure that residents who make telephone bookings will be able to book up to two weeks in advance to ensure they are able to visit at weekends. Affected residents may be able to have someone make an online booking on their behalf if they need to make an unanticipated visit on the day over the weekend.
    • Kent County Council and West Sussex County Council operate their contact centres Monday to Friday only and do not accept telephone bookings at the weekend.
    • The modelling assumes that 1% of bookings are made by phone. This assumption was based on West Sussex and Kent who also receive around 1% of bookings via telephone.
    • The point made regarding friends and relatives helping will be addressed during the design of the system. The waste team will ensure that the system can accommodate situations where friends or relatives need to make bookings on behalf of residents.
  2. Business Case for Savings:
  1. In Principle Agreement:

o   As part of the Government's Devolution White Paper, all two-tier authorities were invited on 5 February 2025 to submit proposals for local government reorganisation. An interim plan for working up the proposal for East Sussex is being considered by Full Council and Cabinet on 20 March.  Part of the proposal is to establish principles about how the Councils will work together and this includes the principle that ‘Decisions made by all sovereign bodies until vesting day will have the interests of the future unitary Council as an explicit consideration’. These principles will be considered as part of the plan, and a decision made on how to proceed.

o   Therefore, whilst working principles have been drafted with District and Borough Councils, these are yet to be considered through the County Council’s formal decision-making processes and therefore do not form part of the Council’s policy framework. Notwithstanding, the Council continues to work with District and Borough Councils; and the impacts of decisions on partners, including District and Borough Councils and any potential unitary authority, are considered as one of a number of factors within the decision making process.

o   In discussions with the Boroughs and Districts it has also been recognised that each council remains sovereign and has legal responsibility to balance its budget until vesting day for a new unitary. Whilst all councils are committed to strong partnership working to consider fully impacts on other councils and/or the new unitary, the principle cannot bind any of the councils.   This is important as the potential new unitary authority is a future organisation, which as yet, has no worked up agreed proposal in place, no government decision, and if agreed will not come into being for a number of years.

o   In the context of the requirement for ESCC to make savings to deliver a balanced budget for 2025/26, in making decisions on the specific proposal the Lead Member considered their current statutory responsibilities. 

o   Appendix 2 of the Lead Member report outlined the public consultation responses where concerns were raised about fly-tipping. It explained that other waste collection authorities in places where booking has been introduced did not experience an increase in fly tipping because of introducing booking systems. The Appendix also highlighted a 2023 report commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) which concluded that there is no indication that fly-tipping is linked to the introduction of booking schemes.

  1. National Fly-Tipping Concerns:

For the last five years there have been 6-8 incidents of fly tipping per 1,000 people across East Sussex. The table below shows how East Sussex compares with the South East, London and nationally.

2034/24

Incidents per 1,000 people

East Sussex

8

South East

11

England

20

London

50

 

  1. Organised Crime:

 

  1. West Sussex action on fly tipping:

7.    Conclusion

o    The system should not be an obstacle to any resident of East Sussex who wants to visit one of the sites with their own waste. The waste team will work to ensure that the HWRS booking system meets the needs of all residents and considers any concerns raised.