Contracting, procurement & partnerships

It is important to develop contractual agreements with delivery partners that are clear and comprehensive. Ad hoc arrangements can generate tension between partners and poor reuse outcomes, due to lack of certainty of service or clarity on roles.

Initial research into the capacity and appetite of local reuse and private sector companies to be involved in large scale reuse activities will inform how the council approaches its procurement and contracting arrangements. This approach will also be affected by the nature and scope of existing contracts that the local authority may have with the private sector for waste management activities or agreements with third sector organisations. 

The third sector, through many local and national organisations, provides the vast majority of the broad range of current reuse services, taking in most types of domestic products. The private sector by comparison has, to date, been mainly involved in the reuse and/or recycling of specific material streams such as WEEE, textiles or construction waste. 

The private sector has however been increasingly expanding into the reuse of household products and there are examples in Aberdeen - The Reuse Shop run by SUEZ - and the Renew Hub project between SUEZ UK and Recycle for Greater Manchester. 

There is also an increasing emphasis on provisions within contract tender documents for the subcontracting of reuse management by private sector companies to local third sector partners to bring in existing expertise, local community involvement, and a range of additional community benefits. These are outlined on the Monitoring and Evaluation page.

Historically in Scotland the majority of contractual arrangements for operating HWRCs on behalf of a local authority are held with the private sector, with opportunities for the third and reuse sectors established through ad hoc arrangements and pilot projects. 

In a number of cases around the UK, local authorities have put stipulations into tender documents for HWRC contracts, where weightings are applied to allow evaluations that favour third sector involvement with associated socio-economic benefits. There are also examples of third sector organisations managing HWRC contracts as a whole in Wales and Northern Ireland (e.g. Bryson Charitable Group), with onsite reuse retail being a part of this. At the Mochdre and Rhyl HWRCs, operated by Bryson, tenders were put out for the operation of onsite reuse retail shops, subsequently won by the St David’s Hospice charity.

Managing reuse at all HWRCs in a region for a local authority, rather than individual sites, may be considered very complex by most third sector organisations in Scotland. However, this may be overcome by partnership working under an umbrella contract, involving more than one organisation. This has been identified by social enterprises in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen to be of real interest and a way of managing this complexity, however this has not been translated into an operating model at the time of writing. 

An example of a complex and significant HWRC service currently being managed by the third sector in Scotland is the management of WEEE from all Highland Council HWRCs by the local charity ILM Highland, based in Alness. They are the delivery organisation for the REPIC WEEE Directive.

In some cases, such partners may have to grow and develop their management capacity to support the effective running of reuse projects, and they may need time and assistance to do this. At the same time local authorities need to consider how service level agreements, expectations and targets can be set out to support and deliver the desired outcomes. The buttons below provide examples of this with respect to work done by different councils. More detail can be found on the case studies webpage.

There is value in considering how contracts and service level agreements can be set up in ways which fundamentally support the circular economy, maximise reuse, deliver against the waste hierarchy and deliver the full range of potential socioeconomic benefits. 

The capacity of local organisations should be understood and taken into consideration. Relationships and services may require time to develop, to deliver the key performance indicators (KPIs) outlined in the contracts or service level agreements. Relationship and trust- building, transparency and effective and regular communication, are core to the success of any future contract or partnership. 

If it is intended to develop services over time, contractual arrangements need to reflect this within their specification and terms and conditions, with links to the KPIs, milestones and also the budget forecasting and structure of contract payments.

KPIs need to reflect the contents of the service specification and ensure that the intended contractual socio-economic impacts are incentivised and carefully measured. This could include providing a specified number of employment and training places and the provision of support to minimum numbers of vulnerable people, for example. 

Contract specifications need to include the ownership of material and how the items flow into and out of the reuse facility. For instance, materials that cannot be reused or broken down into recyclable elements as part of a reuse contract need a disposal route. Therefore, the contract specification should allow for the reuse contractors to reroute these items into another council management contract, such as by putting them in the appropriate container at HWRCs, without any additional cost to the reuse contractor. Find out more about incentives used for reuse in the local authority case studies.