Harrow Council's new waste and recycling service is used as a benchmark by other Local Authorities. It has won a number of awards and is set to deliver £3.2m in savings over the next 10 years. However none of this would have been possible without its high quality source of addressing, Harrow's Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG).

Harrow's Waste Management system handles three bin types for each property, recycled waste, general waste and organic waste, each linked to a unique property reference number (UPRN) held in the LLPG. This system is wirelessly linked to vehicle cabs and integrated internally with the call centre CRM. Both systems independently receive address updates on a daily basis from the LLPG. Forms on the MyHarrow web portal are also linked to the CRM and the waste management system and are facilitated by the LLPG. In addition, the LLPG is also used for the Waste Management system's integrated route optimisation module, which is already delivering a 15% fuel reduction.

Use of the web is growing with transactions via this channel making up nearly 60 % of the total as Harrow residents choose to self-serve when it comes to waste and recycling queries. In the Access Harrow call centre there has already been a noticeable change with overall call volumes down by 3%, those associated with the environment down by 7% and those specifically to do with missed bins down by 25%. These amount to over 200 fewer calls per week. 95% of the remaining calls are being resolved at first contact. Furthermore the number of outbound follow-up calls has been slashed by 95%. Call duration has also been cut by 45 seconds on the average call, which lasts 248 seconds. Costs too have been reduced significantly from £2.23 per enquiry in 2006/7 to £0.82 in 2009/10.

“The Council's waste and recycling service is used as a benchmark by other Local Authorities and we are particularly proud of the savings that are already being made. Of course all the systems put in place to deliver these changes are underpinned by our LLPG, which provides the links between the waste management system, the CRM and the My Harrow web portal. As well as projected savings of over £3.2m over 10 years we are seeing improvements in recycling rates and a reduction in the number of waste related calls received by our call centre, in other words improvements all round,” said Jonathan Milbourn, Head of Customer Services, at Harrow Council.