West Dunbartonshire councillor admits 'systematic failure' in council after festive bin collections chaos

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Labour councillor has apologised to residents and admitted a "systematic failure" within the local authority after red-faced chiefs pulled plans for festive bin collections.Last week, West Dunbartonshire Council (WDC) announced it had pushed back its bin collection schedule, sparking fury among residents who are forced to wait an extra two weeks for their bins to be emptied.The council blamed “workforce resource challenges” - after already attaching the festive schedule details to thousands of bins - as they failed to convince workers to ‘volunteer’ to work overtime between Christmas and New Year.Residents whose bins were due to be collected on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day were initially told that they would be emptied that weekend.

However, the council has now advised that they will not be uplifted until at least January 8.It means residents are being forced to wait four weeks between bin collections during the festive period.Labour Councillor David McBride, the council’s convener of and spokesperson for Infrastructure, Regeneration & Economic Development, said the last-minute announcement was due to the results of a union ballot, which saw the majority of members who voted deciding against volunteering to work on public holidays.

He said he has now asked the Chief Officer to bring forward alternative solutions so the situation doesn't happen again.He said: “The provision of our refuse service has always relied on the voluntary overtime to cover the gaps during public holidays and my understanding is that those volunteers receive overtime payments, public holiday payments and they also receive a re-rostered public holiday day in lieu of working the public holiday.“We have always been very appreciative