COMPENSATION has been sought by the Dorset Waste Partnership after failings by a delivery company meant managers had to roll up their sleeves and do the work themselves.

As reported in the Echo, problems with the implementation of Recycle for Dorset in Weymouth and Portland resulted in thousands of complaints.

An investigation into what went wrong during the roll-out in Weymouth and Portland has been completed by the borough council.

The review, which will be put before Scrutiny and Performance Committee this week, says there were issues with the delivery of containers when the company contracted by the DWP employed agency staff to do the work and they "struggled".

The back-log meant DWP staff, even managers, had to get involved with deliveries themselves – and the partnership has now sought compensation.

As reported in the Echo, Craemer UK, the bin manufacturer, had sub-contracted the delivery of bins to CK Services.

The DWP claimed £37,940 from Craemer UK for costs incurred responding to problems with the delivery of containers.

The company has agreed to pay £30,000.

"It had been hoped that the deliveries would speed up once the company reached the more compact/ built up area of Weymouth and Portland but this was not the case due to the large number of variations for delivery of containers," says the borough council report.

"Due to this, the delivery staff were spending longer in each street and were then being stopped by residents wanting to talk about what they were doing. It was also noted that as the delivery staff were hurrying to complete the deliveries, mistakes were made which led to complaints as some residents were missed and some were left with the wrong containers. It was also noted that there were an unusual number of flats in Weymouth and Portland compared to elsewhere."

Because of the back-log, DWP staff had to get involved.

"Due to the timescale for delivering the containers. the decision was taken that DWP officers would help to complete the remaining deliveries," the report adds.

‘This was undertaken and completed by staff from across all areas of the DWP including management and which included work at weekends.’ Bill Davidson, DWP head of strategy, said: “When it became clear that the contractor was unlikely to meet the schedule to complete bin deliveries in Weymouth and Portland, we deployed our own extra resources over weekends to help make sure that as many residents as possible had their containers in time to start using the new service.

“This included DWP vehicles and staff from across Dorset, including usually office-based staff who helped deliver the smaller food waste containers and provided coordination on the ground. This was a major effort by our staff that helped reduce the level of issues we had to resolve when the service started.”