Serco's breaches of bin contract sees council staff abused

Derbyshire Dales District Council's bin collections has been the centre of local concern for months

Council staff in Derbyshire have faced abuse after a private company's repeated failures led to anger among residents, a meeting has heard.

A report found Serco breached the terms of its contract with Derbyshire Dales District Council 69 times within four months, leading to hundreds of thousands of missed pick-ups.

Council leader Garry Purdy said staff had been abused as a result.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service has approached Serco for comment.

It comes after months of disruption to bin collection services in the area, which are managed by Serco at a cost of £3.1m per year.

During the meeting, it came to light that Allen Graham - independent lead of the review - found there had been 69 breaches of the contract by Serco over the period of three to four months.

'Let our staff down'

Colin Swindell, who represents Winster and South Darley, told the meeting on Thursday the council had "let our residents down big time" with the contract, adding the council has had its "reputation tarnished" by the "absolute chaos".

"We have got to acknowledge that the contract delivery and the service delivery has been a complete failure and has let a lot of people down," he said.

"I feel we have let our staff down, they have experienced things they shouldn't have had to, they have faced a lot of stress and pressure and abuse which frankly they shouldn't have had to."

Mr Graham said issues around bin collections created "an unmanageable level of customer queries and complaints as things started to deteriorate".

Part of the issue, he said, was that council staff trying to handle customer complaints and queries only had the same information available to them that the public had sight of, on the authority's website.

Councillors were stern in their condemnation of abuse aimed at council staff assisting with these queries and complaints.

Mr Purdy added: "They had to put up with some very abusive and foul language, which is not acceptable, and it has been sad to have seen that."

Serco, which has been approached for further comment, has offered its "sincere apologies" for the disruption and impact on residents over the past two years.