In this case, the Council planned to develop an Outline Business Case (OBC) to help decide the most cost-effective solution for its long term recycling and residual waste processing requirements. The Council had already identified the most appropriate collection regime, in part driven by a high proportion of multi-occupancy households in its area and a policy objective of ensuring equality of access to services for all householders. This pointed to adoption of a new, universal co-mingled recyclable collection, and the phasing out of segregated collections and the kerbsider collection fleet.
CH2 was involved from the start with the OBC development, working with Council staff to model existing service costs, and with the Council’s existing external advisors to build up a library of gate fees for a variety of recycling and residual treatment options. This data was then used to develop a series of cost models for comparison, alongside a structured risk assessment and project risk ranking for each option
A key step in the evaluation process was the use of CH2’s models to support sensitivity testing of the models to ensure that the cost ranking of the options was robust. In particular, work was done to explore the impact of differential indexation on whole-life project costs – e.g. general inflation vs. EfW energy generation income and RDF transport costs. The models were also used to examine the impact of starting some elements of the project early, or deferring elements to manage benefits and cashflow, and thus identify the best long term solution.
The OBC was completed in the Autumn of 2012 with positive recommendations to Council, and a detailed programme to implement the proposals is currently underway.