The council waste budget is expected to be 191% out, the planned budget for the Waste Strategy was £809,000 but now the expected outrun is for it to be £2,355,000 or £1,546,000 over budget.
Maybe if the £1.7m costs incurred in rolling out the enhanced recycling scheme, had been included in the budget, which for some reason council officers decided was not needed, this could have been avoided and Councillors could have made a more informed decision
The future direction of the Waste strategy is now to be decided on the closed agenda of the Council Cabinet (EMB2) on 10th February, where this whole Waste Strategy maybe replaced with a completely new strategy, but at what cost now?
Ian Norris 
Ian, you may wish to look into the issue of the purchase of the bins for the enhanced recycling scheme. These were purchased in Oct/Nov 2008 (FOI response) at a cost of £19.70 each. Apparently the council have bought 80,000 of them, total cost £1.5million. It seems that the Council are reluctant to answer questions about the tendering process for purchasing these bins. Is that because they weren’t tendered? It would be interesting to know where the tender was advertised and which companies provided tenders.