Is Birmingham Labour’s wheelie bin bid doomed to fail?

Is Birmingham Labour’s wheelie bin bid doomed to fail?

With less than a week to go for Birmingham City Council to submit its bid for government money – it has to be submitted by 17th August – there is still no sign of it amending its scheme to include a food recycling collection.

As readers of my blog and twitter account will know, there have been several Labour Councillors incorrectly claiming that the government would not fund a food recycling scheme. As my blog at http://martinmullaney.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/why-claims-that-government-will-not.html shows, food recycling scheme is exactly the type of scheme that the government is saying they WILL fund.

However, let’s look at things another way. Will the government fund Birmingham’s £28.5m bid to impose 3 wheelie bins per household for every household? My conclusion is that they are unlikely to do so.


For evidence, or lack of, let’s look at the government’s on part of their Weekly Collection Support Scheme in their Frequently Answered Questions document at http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/2139162.pdf Nowhere in this document does it say that the government will fund wheelie bins or even changes to waste containers. On the other hand it does specifically, and repeatedly, say they would fund schemes that the previous Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration were going to bid for, namely:

• increased recycling collection frequency
• a reward scheme for residents who recycle
• a city wide food recycling scheme.

Even if you look in the criteria for bids, I fail to see where wheelie bins would fit. The criteria is

• · Guarantee to introduce, retain or reinstate weekly collections of residual waste for five years; and
• · Provide environmental benefits or improvements on current environmental performance; and
• · Demonstrate value for money.

Based on the secret Council report, the Labour administration has tried to link wheelie bins to all three of the above criteria on the most dubious evidence. Yet not once does the government even mention wheelie bins or containers as examples they would fund.


In conclusion
We will know in October if the government will fund the Birmingham Labour administration’s wheelie bin bid. If they don’t, then the administration will quite rightly be accused of utter incompetence.