Agenda and minutes

An apology for absence was received from Councillor P Murphy.

In accordance with the Constitution, Members are asked to declare any personal or prejudicial interest they may have in any matter which is to be considered at this meeting.

There were no declarations of interests.

The minutes were noted and agreed.  There were no matters arising.

We noted the Annual Audit Letter 2008/09.

The Chair welcomed the External Auditor (PricewaterhouseCoopers) to the meeting.  Their Annual Audit Letter stated that the Auditors were pleased with the quality of the draft accounts and, in line with Approved Auditing Standards, issued an unqualified opinion.  In addition the Audit Commission requires that the External Auditor’s assess the overall arrangements for managing finances, governing the business and managing resources.

The Auditor issued an unqualified conclusion on the Authority’s arrangements for its Use of Resources.

The Finance Department will keep Members updated of any changes.

We offered our thanks to the Auditor for presenting his report.  The Auditor attended for this item only.

We have approved the following programme of meetings for the forthcoming municipal year, all to be held at the Civic Centre, Dagenham starting at an earlier time of 9.30am.

Monday, 1 February 2010

Monday, 12 April 2010

Monday, 21 June 2010 (Annual General Meeting)

Monday, 27 September 2010

Monday, 22 November 2010

Monday, 7 February 2011

Monday, 11 April 2011

We have noted the Finance Director’s report and noted that there is an overall underspend against the profiled budget of £264,000 after seven months of the financial year.

The report explained the factors that contributed to this including lower tonnages of waste for disposal but reduced income from commercial waste and interest receivable.

We have agreed the report from the Finance Director on ELWA’s Financial Projection and Budget Strategy for 2010/11 to 2012/13.

The level of the projected levy increase had been reduced from 7% to 6% for 2010/11 and from 9.82% to 9% for 2011/12.

Members discussed reserves, the increasing rates of landfill tax, levels of waste, potential service improvement and cost savings.  The Financial Projection and Budget Strategy was agreed.

We have received the Assistant Executive Director’s report and appendices which included the levels of monitoring carried out and issues arising that Jenkins Lane had suffered a series of breakdowns but the service had not been interrupted and only been one non conformance and penalty applied.

Performance was at or above target for all materials except glass.

Members questioned issues of capacity and there will be a report back on this to the February meeting.

ELWA has also engaged London Remade for a three month period to audit Bring Sites, RRC sites and key facilities.  We have raised the issue of bringing separate collections forward.  We will receive a report on this in February.

The report was noted.

We have received the Assistant Executive Director’s report.

All Boroughs were within their targets for waste minimisation and three Boroughs were exceeding their recycling targets.

With regard to collating data on flats recycling WRAP have been engaged feed this into a debate.  A report on this is expected in December 2009.

We have received and noted the Appendices to the report including the Overview of the 2010/11 Communications Programme.

LBR have a bring site approach to blocks of flats and this has been found to be cost effective.  We were interested to learn from the Redbridge approach.

The Assistant Executive Director gave an update on Aveley Methane Ltd (AML).  We will receive a further report on gas management in April 2010.

The Assistant Executive Director will further report on gas levels at Aveley and will set out the options.

This Assistant Executive Director’s report is noted.

We have received the Assistant Executive Director’s report.

ELWA manages four closed landfill sites one of which includes a composting operation.  The Assistant Executive Director also reported that we will be reviewing the composting operations.

Members noted that:-

Continuing the operation:

  (i)  will require a significant upgrade of Health and Safety at the site;

  (ii)  may result in a requirement to apply for an Environmental permit and an increase in management control;

  (iii)  cause the Authority to incur increased future expenditure;

Stopping the operation:

  (iv)  will not adversely affect the risk profile of the Authority;

  (v)  will not incur redundancy costs;

  (vi)  will not have a detrimental affect on the restoration of the site;

  (vii)  will deliver a revenue saving to the Authority;

  (viii)  will not affect the contractors recycling performance.

Members agreed:-

a)  that the composting operation at Aveley 1 is stopped after all materials currently on site have been processed;

b)  that ELWA Officers continue to review the ongoing management of the closed landfill sites and that Members receive a report in due course.

We have received the Executive Director’s report and discussed the Service Plans for the next five years and progress on improving performances.

The financial implications were noted including specifically the estimated costs of the Annual Budget and Service Delivery Plan for 2010/11.  Further reports on future Service Plan will be made at the next meeting.  Arising from a Members’ question on the London Waste and Recycling Board the Managing Director agreed to investigate sources of funding that might be available in conjunction with Borough officers.

Members noted and agreed the proposals set out in Appendix A and B to the report.

Noted.

We have resolved to exclude the public and press from the remainder of the meeting by reason of the nature of the business to be discussed which included information exempt from publication by virtue of paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended).

We have received a report from ELWA Ltd’s ‘A’ Director and the Executive Director.

We noted the commentary relating to the possible gasification project and progress on other ELWA Ltd projects.

Financial Advisers are still awaited and Project Orange is still running.  It was decided that this would be a good use of money and there is a funding gap within that market.

It was noted that:-

  (i)  the ELWA Ltd Minutes of the 29th July are noted;

  (ii)  further reports be brought forward as progress is made.

Chair: ………………………………..

Dated:  ………………………………..