Garden Permit Charity Churches Charges Review

Renfrewshire Council · 29 May 2024
Back to Infrastructure, Land and Environment Policy Board — 29 May 2024 and its agenda

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___________________________________________________________________
To: Infrastructure, Land, and Environment Policy Board
On: 29 May 2024
___________________________________________________________________
Report by: Director of Environment, Housing, and Infrastructure
___________________________________________________________________
Heading: Garden Waste Permit and Churches and Charities Review 
1. Summary
1.1 The Council agreed at it’s meeting on the 14th of December 2023 to carry out a
review of the Council’s Garden Waste Permit Scheme and the Churches and
Charities charges since their introduction over the course of the 2023/24 financial
year, and that a report be brought to the ILE Policy Board prior to the summer
recess.  
1.2  The report will provide an update on how these service implementations have
progressed and setting out the current status. The report will also provide
reference to the wider landscape across Scotland and where Renfrewshire sits
in relation to these service areas. 
_____________________________________________________________________________
2. Recommendations
It is recommended that the Infrastructure, Land, and Environment Policy Board:
2.1 Notes the content of this report and approves the continuation of the garden
waste permit and church and charity waste service arrangements as set out in
the report.       
______________________________________________________
3. Background
3.1 As part of the 2023/24 budget setting process, at its meeting on 2 March 2023,
the Council agreed to establish a Garden Waste Permit Scheme requiring
Renfrewshire householders to purchase and display a permit for the uplift and
disposal of their Garden Waste. Under the general duty applicable to local
authorities through the ‘Environmental Protection Act’ (1990) and the ‘Waste
(Scotland) Regulations’ 2012, Local authorities in Scotland do not have a

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statutory obligation to provide a household garden waste collection service.
Details of how the Garden Permit Scheme would operate were agreed at the ILE
Policy Board at its meeting on 24 May 2023, with the service commencing in July
2023. 
3.2 At its meeting on 15 March 2023, the ILE Policy Board agreed to continue to
provide churches with a free household collection and disposal service (i.e.
where the general waste bin is collected every 3 weeks and the recycle bins are
collected every 4 weeks). Additionally, if churches generated food waste, this
would be collected fortnightly and if garden waste is generated by a church, the
church could choose to participate in the garden permit scheme. Where a church
wished to receive a more frequent service and / or a larger volume of waste
collected, the church would be offered at a reduced commercial waste charge of
55% of the commercial waste charge (i.e. the collection element only). This
fulfilled the Council’s statutory obligations.
3.3 Similarly, the ILE Policy Board in March 2023 agreed to retain the free disposal
of collected waste and recycling from charities and uplifts for charities were
moved onto the Council’s commercial collection and disposal service at a
reduced rate of 55% of the normal charge (i.e. the collection element only).
Again, this fulfilled the Council’s statutory obligations.
_____________________________________________________________________________
4. Garden Waste Permit Scheme 
4.1 With this being a new service, the Council invested in the promotion and to
support residents to apply and participate in the permit scheme. Residents who
received the service would affix a sticker to their brown bins to allow collection
crews to uplift their garden waste. Those who only presented food waste within
their brown bins, were not required to apply for and pay for a permit. The Council
also approved the introduction exceptions from charge for those households
qualified for with Severe Mental Impairment (SMI).
4.2 The information below sets out the participation and income generate through
the scheme for the 23/24 financial year and provides an update on the current
position with participation for the 24/25 financial year. 
4.3   For the financial year 2023/24: 
• The Council received a total of 30,413 applications for Garden Permits.
• 26,795 were paid permits generating a gross income of £1,071,800. 
• 2,615 householders bought more than 1 permit (2,224 bought 2 permits;
303 bought 3 permits; 68 bought 4 permits; and 20 bought 5 permits).
• 1,602 were approved exemptions (i.e., those in receipt of full Council Tax
benefit and those with SMI).  
4.4   Overall, the net income for 2023/24 was £905,761.   Of the implementation costs,
60% were ‘one-off’ costs. These costs included: 
• The design, print and postage of leaflets to households advising them of
the service arrangements; permits and bin tags advising households of
contamination.

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• Support for the Customer Services Unit (CSU) to advise and help
householders complete the online application; support for Council Tax to
assess applications for exemptions and support for the waste advisors to
help householders with the implementation.
• A social media/ digital communications campaign to advise householders
of the change.
4.5 For the current financial year 24/25, to date 29,520 applications have been
received, with 27,167 paid permits, 1,477 approved exemptions, with income
generated to date of £1,086,680.           
Overall Uptake
4.6   Prior to implementation, evidence from other Scottish local authorities who had
implemented a garden permit scheme suggested that uptake would be around
30-40% in year one. For 2023/24, 28,397 households in Renfrewshire signed up
for a garden waste permit, an uptake of 46.5%. 
HWRC Sites/ Fly-Tipping
4.7 From the introduction of the garden permit scheme in July 2023 to the end of the
core garden season in November 2023, comparing tonnage of waste collected
against 2022, there was a reduction of 1525 tonnes of material collected from
kerbside Brown bins. In this same period, there was also a reduction on the
amount of material collected in the grey general waste bin of 32 tonnes and an
increase in the garden waste deposited at the HWRCS sites of 249 tonnes.
Overall, this would indicate that some residents took the option to utilise the free
service offered at HWRCS and that garden waste material was not transferred
to the general waste bin. 
4.8 The roll out of the Garden Waste Permit Scheme followed soon after the
introduction of the Environmental Taskforce to deal with fly tipping. A major part
of this was implementing a much more rigorous reporting method, this included
the “How to Report Fly tipping” weblink that was promoted throughout 23/24 on
Team up to Clean Up media pages, resulting in much more accurate reporting.
Overall, the council has seen an increase in general fly tipping reports, with an
increase of 25 specifically for garden waste, this equates to 1.6% of total fly-
tipping reports received in 2023/24  
4.9 Following implementation of the Garden Waste Permit Scheme, a number of
good practice and improvements to the overall process for 2024/25 have been
introduced including:
• Directly contacting customers who purchased a permit for 23/24. 
• Introducing a separate address into the application form allowing printed
permits to be sent to an alternative address, particularly where a family
member is providing support to the household.
• Developing a social media and media release campaign, which has
widened the awareness and access through greater publicity within local
offices and libraries, Tenants and Tenants Associations, Community
Councils, as well as ‘GovDelivery’ newsletters, ‘Meta’ posts, ‘Instagram’
posts and ‘Google’ advertising.

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• Developing an automatic Council Tax exemption checking process through
AI technology which has vastly reduced the workload of Council Tax and
CSU teams. 
Benchmarking
4.10 As can be seen from Appendix 1 of the report, 76% of Scottish local authorities
who provide a household garden waste service, now charge for that service. 7
Scottish local authorities don’t provide a household garden waste collection at
all. The average permit charge across the 19 Scottish local authorities is £44.62
per bin, putting Renfrewshire below the average. Additionally, Renfrewshire is
one of only 6, of the 19 Scottish local authorities that offers any exemptions to
households.
4.11 Based on the positive uptake of the service, use of the HWRC facilities and the
wider context that this is becoming the main service offering across the country
it is planned that the garden permit scheme arrangements will continue in its
current form. 
_____________________________________________________________________________
5. Churches and Charities
5.1 The service commenced the introduction of the charges from September 2023,
when all of the churches and charities received correspondence detailing the
changes, including the frequency of collection and the projected costs based
upon the then current service provision they received. On-site appointments with
waste advisers confirmed their requirements and to sign the required ‘Duty of
Care’ documentation formalising the new collection infrastructure and frequency
of uplift.
5.2  To assist each church and charity, the Council provided the required bin
infrastructure at no cost to the Church or Charity, and removed any excess bin
infrastructure, again at no cost to the Church or Charity. The visits were
undertaken from October 2023 and completed by late January/ early February
2024, with all the completed ‘Duty of Care’ documentation now signed off.
5.3 Following introduction of the new service arrangements the following
arrangements were put in place with Churches and Charities for waste collection:
71 Churches 
• 26 churches have moved onto the free household collection and disposal
service; of these 10 have purchased a Garden Permit to add to their household
collection and disposal service.
• 11 churches have additionally added a commercial collection service (at a
reduced rate of 55% of the normal commercial rate) 
• 34 churches have chosen to end their collection and disposal service from the
Council. 
77 Charities
• 32 charities have moved onto a commercial collection service (at a reduced rate
of 55% of the normal commercial rate)

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• 45 charities chose not to move to the Council’s commercial collection service;
and
5.4 Following this process, details of those churches and charities who chose not to
continue to receive a Council collection service (either a standard household or
commercial), have been passed to the Environmental Taskforce who are
contacting identified organisations to confirm appropriate, lawful ‘Duty of Care’
arrangements are in place. 
___________________________________________________________________
Implications of the Report
1. Financial – The Garden Waste Permit Scheme has contributed to the
Councils Financial Sustainability strategy 
2. HR & Organisational Development - none 
3. Community/Council Planning – none
4. Legal - none
5. Property/Assets - none
6. Information Technology - none 
7. Equality & Human Rights - The Recommendations contained within this
report have been assessed in relation to their impact on equalities and human
rights. No negative impacts on equality groups or potential for infringement of
individuals’ human rights have been identified arising from the
recommendations contained in the report. 
8. Health & Safety - none
9. Procurement - none
10. Risk - none
11. Privacy Impact - none 
12. COSLA Policy Position - none
13. Climate Risk - none
_________________________________________________________
List of Background Papers
Garden Waste Permit Collection Scheme
Infrastructure, Land & Environment Policy Board
24 May 2023

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Document.ashx (cmis.uk.com)
___________________________________________________________________ 
Author:   Gavin Hutton, Head of Operations and Service Development

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Appendix 1 
Local Authority Cost per Bin
Aberdeen City  £30.00
Aberdeenshire N/A
Angus  £40.00
Argyll & Bute N/A
City of Edinburgh  £35.00
Clackmannanshire £48.00
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar N/A
Dumfries & Galloway  N/A
Dundee City £45.00
East Ayrshire £0.00
East Dunbartonshire £50.00
East Lothian £35.00
East Renfrewshire £50.00
Falkirk £45.00
Fife £0.00
Glasgow City £50.00
Highland £47.75
Inverclyde £42.00
Midlothian £40.00
Moray £50.00
North Ayrshire £0.00
North Lanarkshire £0.00
Orkney Islands N/A
Perth & Kinross £40.00
Renfrewshire £40.00
Scottish Borders N/A
Shetland Islands N/A
South Ayrshire £50.00
South Lanarkshire £0.00
Stirling £50.00
West Dunbartonshire £60.00
West Lothian £0.00