On weekly waste collections

Eric Pickles. FB for Brentwood and Ongar.

I was interested to hear that in the hard times we live in, when schools can't afford books and hospitals leave people to die on trolleys that Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has earmarked £250 million pounds for that one priority that stands over all others - the weekly collection of rubbish.


Pickles seems to be the only one who wants this, so why has he been allowed to spend so much public money on restoring what no-one either wants or needs? 


It is interesting that Pickles, so critical of wastefulness in government, seems to be bending over backwards to encourage householders to waste as much as they possibly can. Indeed the Government's own research suggests that the policy could result in an additional 1.5 million tonnes of waste being sent to landfill every year. 


So called "fortnightly collections" are now carried out by around half of English councils. This not only saves money, cuts the carbon footprint of the collections and raises revenue for local councils but also encourages people to recycle a lot more. The problem of bins becoming smelly over a fortnight has been addressed by somewhere around one quarter of those on fortnightly collections by a separate weekly collection of food waste. This method is recommended by WRAP, the government agency responsible for recycling. 

Mr Pickles says be believes that: "every household in England has a basic right to have their rubbish collected every week."

But Julian Kirby, the Friends of the Earth's waste campaigner, said: "A return to weekly bin collections is an astonishing waste of taxpayers' money and will have a disastrous impact on recycling." 


So what do the public think? Pickles is on record stating that fortnightly collections are "unpopular and unhygienic". Recycling specialists May Gurney, who run many local authority contracts, recently carried out a survey to see which local authority services people most value and those which they would most like to see changed. Refuse and recycling services were named as the most important council service by 44% of respondents - more than any other answer. Only 13% thought this area needed improving. So the government line does not appear to follow what the public want, as support for recycling is in fact very high.


However, reading between the lines, it seems Mr Pickles could have shot himself in the foot. Pickles provides the finances for local councils but it is Caroline Spelman who is responsible for recycling policy. According to the Daily Mail (no fan of recycling it has to be said) she is indeed earmarking the £250 million for weekly collections, but for smelly waste only. That means food waste and that as I pointed out earlier is the correct way forward.


Pickles hates food waste collections calling the caddies "slop buckets". We have made several million such caddies, proudly produced in the UK from recycled plastics creating jobs and value for our shareholders. As the Prime Minister told me himself earlier this year, "they are not slop buckets". We all know this, Daily Mail readers excepted. 


So it seems Mr Pickles is out of step with his boss, his voters and the environmental lobby. But having got his grubby hands on a cool £1/4 billion, it could well be that it is all going to be recycled into more food waste collections after all. Nice one Eric! 

Lessons from a marketing genius

If you haven't read Hegarty on Advertising yet then you should. It is a great book by a great man. Sir John Hegarty was responsible for such great advertising campaigns as Vorsprung durch Technik for Audi and the great launderette TV campaign for Levis. The latter actually created a boom in demand for boxer shorts (showing underpants was not allowed) and also got Marvin Gaye in the charts at a higher position than he had been first time round with I heard it through the grapevine.

So when I heard that Sir John was speaking at The Telegraph Festival of Business I made a point of going to listen to him.  Here are just a few of the words of wisdom he shared.

Sir John had three key principles which he says apply in marketing:

1) The power of ideas is fundamentally important

2) The quality of the product is also important

3) Don't fear being different - because in difference value is created.

He went on to say that the first lesson of marketing is "can I remember it" claiming that memorability is the most important thing. Music to my ears as memorability is one of my Straight 10 Commandments. 

Market research was given short shrift with Sir John claiming that research ultimately will make everything the same. Difference is too important to ignore.

During the Q&A session I told Sir John that I had enjoyed his book immensely and that whilst it was initially a large book that I thought might take some time to read, the very large print and the thick pages actually made it a very quick and easy volume to digest. I then asked if he had ever advised a company to be so different that it damaged their brand. Sir John said that he probably had but he couldn't remember specifics. 

Later on I collared Sir John for a brief chat. Straight plc does some work with Zag, a spin off of BBH and I have visited their offices just off Regent Street in London a few times. I told him the question I really wanted to ask was where he found all of the beautiful women who work there. He just gave me a knowing smile, patted me on the back and was off to his next engagement. 

Times must be hard

Last week I was a delegate at The Telegraph Festival of Business in Manchester. Several hundred business owners and managers from a wide range of SMEs attended to hear various speakers including the Chancellor George Osborne.

During a Q&A session I asked George a question about Capital Gains Tax. I commended him on raising entrepreneurs' relief but reminded him that a problem remains with employee incentives.

My key staff who have share options and LTIPs (long term incentive plans) do not own 5% of the business and as such do not qualify for the 10% tax band. They all work hard in order to make the business a success and they will all deserve to be rewarded should the share price rise or should the business be sold.

They would all be taxed at 28% under current rules. I believe there is an inequality here where the people gaining the most from such transactions (i.e. the owners) will pay a much lower rate of tax than those who are benefiting substantially less.

To his credit, George understood the question perfectly. This was refreshing. I asked David Cameron the same question about 1 week into his premiership and he appeared not to understand what I was asking. Osborne said that he had every sympathy but that he had to be careful not to create any new loop holes that might be exploited.

It was then that I noticed the great big hole in the sole of George's shoe. Being quite a smartly presented fellow I am sure he would be horrified to know that anyone had seen this. I tweeted about seeing this hole, which was then also noticed by Daily Telegraph City Editor Richard Fletcher. Somehow word got to columnist and cobbler John Timpson who has offered to collect George's shoes and fix them. What a great idea as long as Georgie boy submits a declaration of interest of course.

They are not slop buckets!

Research by Friends of the Earth has found that more than 80% of people separating food waste for disposal say that the practice is not a nuisance. More than half of those who do not have food waste containers also agree.

This dispels the slop bucket myth being propagated by the Daily Mail, Eric Pickles and others.

At the CEO Summit the Prime Minister told me that "they are not slop buckets". I know this, having supplied many millions of kitchen and kerbside caddies to households around the UK, but it is good that the man at the top shares this philosophy.

FoE waste campaigner Julian Kirby said:

“It’s a load of rubbish that food waste collections are smelly and unpopular - most people think they’re hassle-free and want all councils to provide them. As food prices rise, it is even more important that we cut waste and recycle the scraps that cannot be eaten, and we can make genuinely renewable energy from what is left over. David Cameron must build on the success and popularity of recycling by setting a goal to halve the rubbish England throws away by the end of the decade.”

Hear hear.

Would you walk over hot coals?

Well, would you? I was asked to do this to raise money for charity and I must admit that initially I was not keen. After all, who in their right mind would walk over 20 feet of red hot embers?

I have agreed to do this on 30th October - just a couple of months away. Having researched it, I believe there is more science and less mind over matter and it is a combination of the poor conductivity of the coals, the insulating properties of carbon and the short time the feet are in contact with the coals that makes this possible. Nonetheless, I still expect it to be a challenging and somewhat daunting experience.

My part of the deal is to tell you all how I get on and possibly let you have some pictures. Your part is to sponsor me. Please do so at the link below.

www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/LJWB5

Thank you.

Keep taking the tablets

I am rarely parted from my iPad using it for a whole host of activities which it simplifies and makes more accessible. It is also a pleasure to be able to review e-mails whilst sitting in a chair rather than being at a desk in front of a monitor.

We should not forget, however, that the idea of a tablet PC is not new. I was an early adopter of this technology and I used one of these HP Compaq TC1000s which I bought nearly 10 years ago - in 2002. It was an amazing machine being compact and light as well as having a detachable keyboard. With its digital pen, I used it as an electronic notebook for several years. This was preferable to my many paper notebooks all of which I have had to keep in case I want to refer back to anything. Having digital notes was a dream.



The pen broke after a couple of years, but I still used the tablet for a while more - in fact up to 2007 when it proved to be just too slow. I looked far and wide to find something similar, but to no avail. There were some Fujitsu tablets but these were too heavy and got very hot whilst running. No one had what I wanted.

So the iPad  was keenly antiricpated (bought on day 1 of availabilty) and whilst is not very good for taking written notes it is great at most other tasks. So the current travelling kit is an iPad and a Moleskine notebook with a real pen.

I read today that HP is pulling out of the tablet PC market. Having been a pioneer in this field, this is a real shame. But it is also a lesson about seeing the value in what you have available in your business. HP were years ahead of Apple but failed to recognise the true potential of their intellectual property. The rest, as they say, is history.

It I can take a positive out of the HP and Apple experience, it shows that you don't actually have to have a great idea to be hugely successful. Something which lacks originality but remains innovative can be great too.

Vertically integrating hardware and software has also been shown to work. HP was reliant on Microsoft's clunky Windows for Tablet PCs whilst Apple controls the lot. I think this demonstrates the wisdom in Google's purchase of Motorola as a platform for Android.

So whilst my HP tablet was a great piece of kit, not surpassed until the advent of the iPad - I would still rather have the iPad any day of the week.

The future of education

A letter arrived last week from the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove.  It seems that it was sent to everyone who attended the Time CEO Summit back in June.

In the letter he asks if I (either as an individual, or through my business) would like to sponsor an academy. Gove does not want my money, he wants my expertise. His department will find an under-performing school and then it is up to me to choose a head, appoint leaders, set goals and apply my "skills" to put the school on a "path of sustained improvement".

The letter goes on to inform me that I don't need to know anything about educational theory. I should think about where I would send my children (the implication is that this will not be a state school) and then apply the qualities that establishment would have to a failing state school.

As a bonus, it I want to "embrace the challenge" I can meet the Prime Minister.

I could not believe this letter. I thought it was a hoax. This is not a Government policy I had previously heard about or read about.

Yes, get business people to help because we may have skills that are not evident in the public or educational sectors. But isn't this what being a school governor is all about? But giving someone with no experience in education whatsoever the responsibility to run a school? Just because we went to a high flying conference. These are real children with their futures at stake and it simply is not fair to experiment with their lives.

Mr Gove told us that at age 11 a child in Singapore has better skills in English than a child in England. So it it actually so hopeless under his regime that anything would be better or nothing would be worse?  Or is it just when it goes spectacularly wrong that they can say that it was not their fault?

I'm waiting for more letters now, perhaps inviting me to run a battalion in the Army, a Navy frigate, a police station, maybe a hospital or a job centre. Perhaps HM Government would like us entrepreneurs to fight the war in Libya - after all we couldn't make much worse a job of it than they have.