Environmental issues consultancy services

Description

Waste services has a requirement for a number of consultancy support services to deliver vital operational services and to inform the Council’s transformation agenda. A total of six lots of requirements have been identified, which set out these requirements at a high-level. A single bidder will be appointed to each lot, with there being no guaranteed expenditure or timings available currently for these requirements. Waste services will call off to the successful lot provider as and when required, during the course of the framework lifetime. Stirling Council has in place six SEPA Waste Management Licenses and two discharge consents, in addition to a category three bay animal health approval to cover the sites and facilities where the Council undertakes its statutory duties as a waste collection and disposal authority. SEPA requires within each of the licenses, that an appointed license holder be present across the licensed sites 20 % of their operating time. There is a requirement to attend at our Polmaise Depot (and related sites) one day per week and to potentially also operate on an on-call advice basis out with these weekly visits. SEPA requires that the appointed license holder hold a certificate of technical competency (CoTC), demonstrated by the completion of a level 3 and 4 vocational WAMITAB qualification. At present, waste services does not currently have a qualified license holder, with a number of members of the team recently commencing levels 3 and 4 WAMITAB qualification completion. The use of external license holder services will be required immediately and will continue until such a time as members of the waste services team complete WAMITAB qualifications. The consultant license holder must provide flexible and responsive support, including out of hours standby. There will be occasions when the license holder will be required for more than 1 day per week to meet with service and regulatory needs. Provision of waste management qualification training to waste services team candidates (candidate possess a reasonable to good level of operational experience). The qualifications are in both hazardous waste transfer operations (HR0C4) and closed landfill operations (HR0C3). The providers must be registered with the WAMITAB awarding organisation and be able to demonstrate this. Commercial responses must include the fee for both the completion of the qualification and certificate of technical competence. This work will involve the qualified appointed training registering and overseeing waste service officers through the appointed vocational qualifications, including providing a clear steer on unit expectations and assisting with time management of efficient completion of units. The appointed trainer is expected to attend on site on occasions to oversee aspects of the course delivery and provide necessary supports. Professional technical consultancy support is required to enable waste services to move forward and resolve a number of complex legacy projects, including but not limited to: • supporting the authority to work with the regulator to: — dismantle stockpiles of historical windrowed compost residue, — closed landfill re-capping, landfill infrastructure review and closure restoration and aftercare plan review and update, and — resolving invasive weed spread across the Lower Polmaise Depot site, in conjunction with the aforementioned projects; • supporting the Council with new waste site infrastructure projects. Procurement and tendering support services relevant to relevant technical services required. This work will involve working with the Council’s appointed officer to undertake fieldwork assessments, prepare reports of findings and proposals. The appointed consultancy will be experienced in the areas of waste site management, including closed landfill sites and in developing infrastructure delivery projects. Professional experienced waste sector communications consultancy support may be required to support the roll out and embedding of future planned kerbside collection model service changes. Experienced professional consultancy services will be required to undertake waste compositional analysis on kerbside and Household Waste Recycling Centre waste skip streams to inform tender specifications, treatment options, final destinations and to meet with impending changes in legislation/regulation. The appointed contractor will work with waste services to ensure a robust sample selection process is undertaken to meet with best practice guidance to ensure the sample is representative. Waste services will uplift the required number of bins from householders and will deliver the sample to the Lower Polmaise Depot. It is understood that for kerbside materials (residual waste) a robust waste compositional analysis process would need to take place for kerbside materials over three agreed consecutive cycles, in order to be representative. The appointed contractor will provide staffing, receptacles and equipment to undertake the sorting process and will provide accurate and detailed reports to the Council of the findings in an agreed format. Collection service options appraisal work is undertaken by Councils when planning significant kerbside collection service changes. This detailed consultancy work will need to draw on significant knowledge and experience, which represents a knowledge gap for Stirling Council.