Glasgow's rubbish-bin millions: where has the money gone?

The Herald Scotland

6 days ago

The council's response was that budgets were under pressure, which they are, and that the collection of garden waste isn't one of their statutory duties, which it isn't, and that the money raised from the permits would be spent on vital services. They also said people weren't being forced to use the brown bins or pay for the permits because they could compost waste in their gardens or take it to a recycling centre. And they said the whole thing would help to minimise the impact of climate change as well.
Did this reassure the folk of the Winget estate? Of course it didn't. Fifty quid to pick up your rubbish in Bearsden is probably no big deal; you may have a big garden where you can compost your rubbish, or a car to take it to the dump. The Winget estate in the east end is a different case: there's more deprivation, money's tighter, and not everyone's got a car. Ms Ayre argued there should be a reduced fee for the elderly or vulnerable, which is a good point, but the real problem is that a £50 charge for pick-up has a disproportionately negative effect in deprived areas. You can see it already with the charges for bulky items, which have led to more rubbish getting dumped in communities that have more than their fair share of problems already.
Back at the start, the bins rebellion, small though it was, seemed to be having some effect: at the beginning of last year, under 20% of the properties eligible to get the permit had applied for it. But the council always said they thought applications would increase when the summer came and hedges and grass need cutting and so it has proved. In fact, we now know, thanks to The Glasgow Times, that in its first year - October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024 - the scheme brought in £2,031,600, and then £2,283,150 in the 12 months after that. Over £4million from brown-bin permits. A lot of money.
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The question now is: what's it being spent on? The council is sticking to the same general line: that the funds raised will be reinvested in council services; they say £2million per year from the permits had been approved as one of the options to balance their budget – in other words, they need this money to plug the gap. However, the Drumchapel and Anniesland councillor Paul Carey has been demanding more information. Glaswegians who are paying for the permits, he says, deserve to know what the money is being spent on. Where, specifically, is the money going?
Mr Carey asks a perfectly fair question, and one that goes to the heart of the issues we're talking about here. He says many areas of the city are crying out for investment and we can see it for ourselves. Litter's worse, fly-tipping's worse, graffiti's worse, the state of many of our buildings is woeful, and the condition of the streets themselves has deteriorated. There's a crisis of cleanliness that needs focus and needs money.
To be fair to the council, it did announce in February that it's investing more in frontline cleansing services: £7million on more staff to deal with fly-tipping, littering and weeds, nightshift workers to clean the city centre and local high streets, and more staff to carry out deep cleans. The council said their staff would be working round the clock to keep the streets clean because 'a cleaner Glasgow is a better Glasgow'.
More money has been invested in cleansing (Image: Newsquest)
Cheesy slogan aside, the extra money is good news, although the council is seeking to fix a problem that to some extent is self-inflicted, by which I mean not enough bins, fewer collections, poor street cleaning, and ongoing staff issues. I have spoken to people who work in cleansing several times and the thing they tell you is there isn't enough staff to do all the jobs that need done. The council made things worse by cutting staff then taking on agency staff to plug the gaps, which is more expensive. And to top it all, we now have the charges for pick-up including the permits for brown bins, which raises money but also leads to more fly-tipping and rubbish on the streets.
The obvious solution, assuming the council isn't going to listen to the likes of Ann [[Ayr]]e and back down over the permits, is to use the money that's raised on cleansing specifically. They should do this, firstly, because it would help to mitigate the problem collection charges help to cause in the first place. And they should do it, secondly, because £7m, welcome though it is, is not enough. Admittedly, this is not a problem entirely of the council's making – the Scottish Government has cut their budgets and ringfenced the money they do get for government priorities – but realism about the scale of the problem is also required. £7m? It's just the start.
So perhaps the council could listen to Mr Carey and provide a breakdown of where the millions raised from the permits has gone because then we can suggest where the money should be going instead. One idea: tackle the disproportionate effects of the cleansing crisis by setting the cash aside for the least well-off parts of Glasgow. Ann Ayre thinks rubbish collection should be part of council tax. I agree. There's also the reality that charging extra to pick up waste makes the crisis of waste worse. But if we've lost that argument, and it looks like we have, the least we can do get a positive out of it. Bottom line: the money that comes from rubbish should be spent on reducing it.