'Woeful' Serco could be stripped of £650 million Sandwell Council contract

A Sandwell Council scrutiny committee has launched a probe into the authority's maintenance contract with the firm, which was signed in 2010 and is due to run until 2035.

Under its terms, Serco is contracted to perform duties including bin collections and street and drain cleaning, as well as running the Shidas Lane tip.

Bin workers are currently involved in a long-running industrial dispute, but the Express & Star has been told that the problems with services run far deeper.

A council source said: "They are failing on pretty much everything and service standards are woeful. There is virtually nothing that they are doing right."

Before the fuel crisis Serco is said to have run out of diesel at its Shidas Lane and Danks Way depots, meaning bin lorries and other service vehicles were unable to go out on jobs.

The state of the firm's fleet is set to have deteriorated to such an extent that vehicles have been borrowed from other authorities, with residents spotting a Canterbury Council bin lorry doing the rounds.

Bulky waste collections are currently said to be taking up to four weeks, way above the service standard of seven-to-10 working days.

Councillor Paul Moore, chair of environment and economy scrutiny committee, said: "We will be reviewing all aspects of the Serco contract and its performance.

"Many of the issues we are looking at pre-date the pandemic, including the reliability of bin collections and street cleanliness.

"The inquiry is not about the work that staff have been doing, it is about the management and the wider performance of the contract.

"The bottom line is that the council contract Serco to provide these services and we need to be assured that taxpayers are actually receiving the standard of service expected."

The committee has the power to recommend that the council terminates the contract. The review is expected to be concluded by the end of the year.

Andrew Smith, regional operations manager for Serco, said: "We are currently in the process of updating the refuse vehicles, with 18 vehicles on order since July which will delivered during the early part of 2022.

"On all of our contracts, including Sandwell, as part of our business continuity planning, like all contracts of this nature we do have contingency vehicles available.

"These can include vehicles which have been redeployed from other parts of the business."

He added the firm had been "unable to establish" whether any vehicles had run out of fuel.

Meanwhile the crisis surrounding bin collections in the borough shows no signs of abating, with unions accusing Serco of failing to address issues on safety and wages.

The firm has this year given over control of street cleaning and refuse collection at Bexley Council after months of strikes by disgruntled workers, and is also dealing with an industrial dispute in Derbyshire over pay.