This meant these councils’ waste services were reactive (a culture which the focus
groups believed would further restrict such experimentation). Furthermore, the focus
group believed that the number of programmes launched by Government had created
“initiativitis” which, given what needed to be achieved with waste and targets, meant
they considered their counterparts were likely to overcome this by adopting a purely
service focus. In the absence of a performance management framework, they were
likely to be using simple information systems to measure target compliance.
Nonetheless, they believed councils’ waste services were ready for change, despite
remaining service-focused, risk-averse and reactive.