SCC HA Property Scope Research

Tender description

Surrey County Council would like to procure research and consulting services for hard to reach properties ie.households including flats, apartments or maisonettes. Background: According to the 2011 ONS census, more than one in five Surrey households (21%) live in a flat, apartment or maisonette. This includes purpose built blocks of flats, converted or shared houses or accommodation in a commercial building (eg over a shop). This equates to nearly 95,000 households. Surrey County Council (SCC) is working on behalf of the Surrey Waste Partnership (SWP). The SWP have indentified six key problem areas that are preventing SWP from achieving the requirements of its joint strategy, one of these being hard to reach properties. For the purpose of this project, households including flats, apartments or maisonettes will all be classified under the term hard to reach properties. Work to tackle the issues of low recycling performance at hard to reach properties has been carried out across Surrey, but the extent of this has varied across the districts and boroughs. A full understanding of the work that has already taken place and of the data and information held by districts and boroughs is needed to inform a programme of work for a future SWP hard to reach properties team. Aim: • Appoint consultants to conduct a scoping exercise that gathers information about hard to reach properties and provides recommendations for future work. Objectives • Carry out desk based data gathering and interviews to collate information from the SWP district and boroughs about their hard to reach properties. • Following the information and data gathering, collate and report information on SWP’s hard to reach properties. • Identify the high priority sites that need immediate attention. • Provide recommendations for future improvement work at Surrey’s hard to reach properties. Outcome: This scoping exercise is the first of a three part approach to conducting an inventory of our hard to reach properties and implementing improvements. The information gathered from the exercise will be used to inform the recruitment and work of a specific hard to reach properties team. Following the scoping exercise the newly formed team will use the results of the scoping exercise to: 1. Build a plan of work and prioritise the most hard to reach properties. 2. Carry out site surveys for properties to identify improvements that can be made. 3. Implement tailored service changes and communication improvements. Timeframe: SWP are looking for the scoping activity to be completed by the end of June 2016.