News

Improvements to Poole's Refuse and Cleansing Service are underway following a thorough Best Value review of the service in July 2001.

As part of a Government scheme to continually review and improve services, an independent report by the Audit Commission released today, found the service was 'fair with promising prospects for improvement'.

The report found:

• good public satisfaction with services
• that streets were generally clean
• customer complaints were responded to speedily and efficiently
• the Council's performance against national performance indicators for refuse and street cleansing compared favourably with similar Councils

Areas for improvement included:

• dealing with vehicle reliability
• improving public confidence in black box recycling collections
• assessing the impact of changing definitions for measuring performance in areas such as recycling
• providing clear ways of measuring performance locally
• ensuring the development of a new waste strategy for Poole

Cllr Bob Williams, Executive Spokesperson for Environment & Prosperity, said: "Because of increasing costs and vehicle breakdowns, we made it a top priority to review and examine how we could deliver a better refuse and cleansing service for local people. Many of the areas highlighted in the report have already been dealt with such as vehicle breakdowns and Poole's brand new fleet of leased vehicles including new state of the art refuse trucks will be arriving in the Spring. Through extra litter picking and the Pride in Poole campaign we are working with local residents and businesses to educate and remove the increasing amounts of rubbish we collect each year. Even so we are not complacent and street cleansing is one of our top priorities in the coming year"

Peter Pawlowski, Head of Consumer Protection Services, said: "This report recognises and endorses all the measures we have put in place as a result of our review. Our thorough examination of the service dealt directly with the difficulties we faced last year and our action plan is resolving them. Once completed, these improvements will ensure we provide an excellent service for people in Poole".