New Street Champions “Dish the Dirt”
22 March 2006
Next time you are out and about, if you see members of the public snapping pictures of graffiti and fly tipping, don’t be alarmed, its all part of Welwyn Hatfield Council’s new Streetscene Partnership. From April 2006, streetscene services will be provided by Serco, the Council’s service partner for a range of activities including refuse and recycling collections, landscaping and street cleaning.
The partnership follows an extensive review of current arrangements and a year long procurement process where the Council scrutinised proposals from some of the UK’s leading providers of streetscene and environmental services.
Richard Masters, Welwyn Hatfield Council's Chief Community and Environmental
Services Officer said, “The new partnership will be both high profile and very visible with Serco providing a range of improvements including rapid response teams, new street cleaning vehicles and specialist equipment to deal with a range of persistent environmental problems.”
A key aim will be to get people more involved in improving their environment by equipping local volunteers (Community Champions) with digital camera’s linked directly to Serco’s service helpdesk.
Robin Davies Marketing Director of Serco Local Government said, “We are enlisting the help of local residents to be our eyes and ears on the ground, we want them to take pictures and report back what they see, our challenge is to respond quickly and keep the streets clean and tidy.“
A unique feature of the partnership is regular customer satisfaction surveys, where every quarter over 350 local people will be contacted by telephone and asked their views, on how good the services are and what improvements can be made.
Alan Franey, Welwyn Hatfield Council's Executive Member for Environmental Services said, “For the first time local people will have a real say in how local services are provided, with the results of customer satisfaction surveys determining how much Serco will be paid.”
“Serco will play a major role with ourselves in keeping the Council’s promise to make Welwyn Hatfield cleaner and greener, “ he added.
The partnership is worth up to £70m and will commence on 3rd April 2006 for a period of 10/14 years with staff being transferring from the Council to Serco under TUPE regulations.