Bridgend County Borough Council is preparing to hand some contracts directly to firms without putting them out to tender, to make sure the bins keep being emptied when it takes over collections from its contractor in July 2027.
A report to Tuesday’s cabinet says the approach carries a legal risk. Awarding a contract above the legal threshold to an existing supplier without competition “will amount to a breach” of procurement law unless an exemption applies, it says, and a firm that missed out could go to court to have the contract set aside or claim damages.
The council’s public announcement this week put it more gently, saying it “may in limited circumstances seek approval to continue using certain existing suppliers”.
For households nothing changes “at this stage”. Collections carry on as they are.
Why Bridgend wants to keep the contractor’s suppliers
Around 130 suppliers support the service run by Plan B Management Solutions, providing IT systems, plant and equipment maintenance, and the bins and boxes themselves.
The board overseeing the takeover has decided the service residents get should not change where that can be avoided. “Whenever introducing new supply chains there is risk introduced,” the report says, so “existing suppliers in some key areas will need to be utilised”.
That will not apply to every firm. The council says it will use contracts it already holds where it can, and replace any supplier that is not performing well.
The law requires open tendering for goods and services contracts worth more than £207,720. The report says the risk can sometimes be reduced by keeping a direct contract short enough to stay under that figure.
Where that is not possible, officers would use a delegated power to suspend the council’s own contract rules, for contracts worth up to £1m, with the approval of its monitoring officer.
Cabinet is being asked to note that, not to vote on individual contracts.
How the Bridgend bins takeover slipped from March 2026 to July 2027
Bridgend has used a contractor since 2003. In April 2024 we reported that the council’s consultants had recommended hiring a new one. Cabinet decided that November to bring the service in-house when Plan B’s contract ended in March 2026.
In April 2025 the council agreed a 15-month extension with Plan B, after consultants SLR advised on “the deliverability of the project in the time available”.
Since then it has appointed a transition manager and support officers, added staff in procurement, and is recruiting in human resources. SLR’s fees and the extra staff are being paid from a reserve set up for the purpose. The report does not say how much has been spent.
A £1.881m budget for new vehicles was approved in July 2024 “to mitigate the issues around the reliability of the fleet”. Several have been ordered and some delivered, with more due into 2027. Two open tenders are about to start, for selling the recycling that is collected and for skips at the community recycling centres.
The report gives no figure for the cost of the changeover, or for what the service will cost to run in-house.
Cllr Gary Haines, cabinet member for communities and the environment, said: “Our priority throughout the transition is to maintain continuity for residents and minimise the risks associated with a project of this scale.”
Cabinet meets at 2.30pm on Tuesday 22 September.
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