To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Da Costa.

To receive any Declarations of Interest.

None.

To confirm the Part I Minutes of the meetings held on 23 January 2019 and 4 February 2019.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meetings held on 23 January 2019 and 4 February 2019 be approved.

To receive the above report.

The Strategy and Performance Manager, Anna Robinson, presented the Q3 Performance Report.  The last report considered by the Panel was the Q1 report.

The Panel were informed that in November 2017 Cabinet approved the council’s Performance Management Framework (PMF) of 25 key measures.  Out of these 25 measures, five came under the remit of this Panel. Four of these had met or exceeded the target in the third quarter, whilst one measure was just short of target but within tolerance. 

The target, 4.2.1 Percentage of household waste sent for reuse, recycling, had been reporting ‘amber’ since Q2.  It was explained that the long hot summer had affected this measure as there was less green waste to recycle.  Recycling rates for the Royal Borough remained higher than Wokingham and Bracknell Forest Council’s rates whist weekly bin collections remained in place. Marketing continued to be undertaken to remind residents and businesses to recycle.

Councillor Sharpe stated he was particularly worried about the level of recycling within the Royal Borough. The Royal Borough was doing very well, but he felt that the Council needed to take steps to improve levels of recycling across the Royal Borough. Residents were concerned about the level of waste, particularly plastic waste. He had asked local shop keepers how many plastic bags they gave out to their customers and he was staggered to discover in Ascot, shop keepers handed out approximately 4,000 plastic bags per month. The Royal Borough needed to do more to encourage people not to buy single use plastic. The Strategy and Performance Manager responded that the Council were implementing the new waste management contract and work would be undertaken with contractors to incentivise recycling.

The Chairman stated Windsor Library regularly ran out of food waste bags and she hoped residents were using them properly for their intended purpose. Sue Fox, Principle Commissioning Officer, responded that January 2019 saw the Borough’s highest food waste collection to date.

Councillor E. Wilson stated recycling bags would be handed out at the Clewer Spring Clean. Recycling was something the Council did with people in partnership. Wokingham Council had only just started recycling food waste so the Borough was ahead of neighbouring Councils on this issue. The Council had to think about how it recycled within each ward as some did not recycle anything whilst other residents would focus on recycling only paper, or cans; the Council needed to work with residents on encouraging recycling.

The Chairman directed Members to the fly tipping target on page 22 of the agenda and requested more details. The Strategy and Performance Manager explained how the targets were set to make sure fly tipping incidents were not on the increase. With recycling, Q1 was above target and Q2 and Q3 were slightly lower with tolerances being tailor made for each situation.

The Principle Commissioning Officer confirmed that in order to reduce incidents of fly tipping, the Royal Borough had reduced the number of large bin sites which had reduced the number of fly  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47.