The Taxpayers’ Alliance’s lack of research beggars belief; it couldn’t be that the TPA are just a bunch of ideological zealots?
It was a classic Taxpayers’ Alliance story. The headline “Binmen get iPads to save on paper” ran across this morning’s Metro front page. The article detailed how supposedly-profiligate Bury Council was spending £9,000 on the Apple tablets so bin lorries could log details of collections.
The TPA weighed in:
“It beggars belief that a council making huge savings can find this money to splash out on iPads.
“Residents want bin services that are reliable and efficient, not council staff monitoring what they’re throwing out.”
The Daily Mail even lifted the “beggars belief” line for its own headline, topping off a fine day’s work for the TPA.
What actually beggars belief is the so-called alliance failed to do its research properly before commenting on something it knew very little about.
The initiative will actually save Bury Council money, the iPads just being a new form of efficiency-through-mechanisation. A spokesman for the council told Left Foot Forward the changes have the capacity to save the council more than £150,000 per year.
He added:
“This system should ensure that the number of missed collections is reduced to an absolute minimum, because any problems are reported in immediately to our Customer Contact Centre [rather than afterwards, meaning that houses would need to be revisited]. We collect from 83,000 houses each week.
“In the last financial year, we received 4,228 reports of missed bins – we estimate that it would cost £40 to revisit each house, equivalent to nearly £170,000 a year, so this new system should make hefty savings.
“Bury Council is consistently ranked as one of the country’s most cost-effective and efficient councils, and this initiative has been developed in-house in order to keep down costs.”
Honestly, one might jump to the conclusion that the TPA were not really interested in value for money for taxpayers, but on an ideological adventure to undermine public services and the public sector – in this case Bury Council’s directly-provided bin collection services.
92 Responses to “Crazy Taxpayers’ Alliance attack on council that’s *saving* money”
Tom May
Daniel Elton on the continuing myopia of the Tax Payers' Alliance: http://t.co/FpyWvqI
Daniel Elton
There has been come criticism of the piece, including from the TaxPayers’ Alliance and on this blog, arguing that the Bury council Binmen would not need a tablet like an ipad, but should use pencil and paper or a traditional phone.
Now, I am not an expert in refuse collection so I thought I would contact some people who were – private contractors who work with local authorities to collect bins. And, it turns out, they use touchscreen wireless technology.
May Gurney (works with 21 local authorities, 8 per cent of the market) uses a bespoke MGConnect system, that includes a touchscreen unit in the cab and GPS technology.
May Gurney say they need the system so that crews get use to new collection routes, can handle customer enquiries, and minimise missed collections. It also allows recycling centres to plan how they will receive the loads.
Meanwhile, Biffa use in-cab computer terminals to record which bins have been collected, which relays the information to a central hub. It has developed its own technology and allows for two way communication, updating crews on health and safety and other information.
So Bury Council is merely falling into industry best practice by not using pencil and paper or traditional mobile phones to co-ordinate crews.
Biffa and May Gurney have developed bespoke systems, which Bury Council decided would cost too much money due to lack of economies of scale, so they chose the tablet that had the functionality that could carry out the appropriate role.
Surely the TaxPayers’ Alliance should congratulate Bury Council on adopting private sector best practice?
Leon Wolfson
No, no Daniel. You don’t get it. Because it’s a COUNCIL saving money, it’s inherently evil since there hasn’t been revenue generated for a private company. They’ll just spend the money saved elsewhere, on those communist things like schools or playgrounds!
Adrian Cox
Have you not examined Bury Council’s own statement before publishing it? What they are saying does not make any sense whatsoever. They say that this will mean they don’t have to revisit ‘missed bins’ – how does logging a problem on an iPad mean they don’t have to go back? The truth is that this is about monitoring the bin habits of innocent residents. I am sick of being accused by my council of doing things I didn’t do – I am an obsessive recycler, yet all we get are letters of accusation because I get mixed up with my neighbouring flats. They can waste staff time and money monitoring innocent residents, yet when I call the council with a problem, I’m told they are under-resourced.
Furthermore, using their own figures (above – 4228 per annum), this problem only happens 17 times per working day on average. So why not have drivers just text the details – something much cheaper and less prone to damage in such a dirty situation. Also, an iPad is a fashion accessory – equivalent kit can be purchased for half the price of Apple stuff.
You need to question what authorities tell you before just backing them up. I’m with the Taxpayer’s Alliance on this one. This is not money well spent as (even if technology is required), cheaper alternatives are available.
Leon Wolfson
Oh, texting the details is cheaper is it? Well, that requires they stop (and you can’t assume they are good texters, so potentially for up to a minute each time, using a printed reference sheet…) after each bin, rather than tapping a screen. Then, 20 texting plans on mobiles the councils need to buy? And you’ll need to develop software to handle the SMS messages and to update a central database, and send texts back if necessary… Nope, not cheaper than the alternatives…
And yes, it DOES help highlight when they get to the end of the street and it beeps at them “you didn’t do number 12”.
“equivalent kit can be purchased for half the price of Apple stuff”
Really? Link it to me. Also remember, as I said, to take into account the cost of mounts, software development and of the time required to develop alternatives…