Here Steve White, general manager of Cityclean, addresses householders' concerns over changes to city refuse collection runs.

DESPITE numerous problems encountered with reorganising the city's refuse collection service, it was crucial the council bit the bullet and went ahead with the round changes.

Residents have been extremely patient during the changeover period and we are grateful for their understanding.

To those residents where our service has been less than adequate and we missed collections, we offer our sincere apologies.

All these problems are being tackled as quickly as possible and we are confident missed refuse sacks will soon become a thing of the past.

Some residents have said to us: "I was perfectly happy with my refuse collection. I like the crew and I don't understand why the rounds had to change."

There is a perception, since refuse collection was taken back under direct council management, that the service had improved. But perceptions can often be deceiving and do not always show the true picture.

What the council inherited from Sita last October certainly was not an efficient service, nor was it very effective. Crews could be found working in Rottingdean one day and Hangleton the next.

There was no personal accountability for the work completed or not completed.

Crews collected from an unequal number of homes, which made the system unfair to the workforce, unsustainable, inefficient and costly to the council.

All this had to change if we were to provide a cost-effective operation and expand services such as kerbside collection of recyclable waste.

We currently provide a paper-only collection from about one third of the city's residents and it is just not good enough. The council wants to do much more to encourage recycling.

The reorganisation was complex with about 80,000 residents having their collection day changed.

There were bound to be teething problems but it is important to stress the problems have been with only a minority of collections.

The vast majority of residents in the city have had their rubbish collected on the day they were promised we would collect it.

Now that the round changes have been introduced, all of the 18 crews have approximately the same number of homes to collect from. In addition, each crew is collecting refuse from, on average, 20 per cent more homes daily.

Each crew is remaining in its designated area for the entire week and it is hoped this will foster a village spirit.

From now on each crew is being held personally responsible to ensure no refuse is missed provided residents have put it out prior to 7am on the day of collection.

If a refuse sack is missed, it will be the same crew that will have to go back to pick it up.

This will help reduce traffic movements across the city, save time and money and reduce the impact on the environment.

We are now into the fourth week since the rounds were changed and the majority of our crews are regularly completing each day's scheduled work.

We have a small number of rounds, for example Kemp Town and Saltdean, where we are experiencing difficulties and are working with the crews to resolve these.

The good news is we are no longer employing costly agency staff to back up what was previously a very badly-managed service.

I cannot fault the workforce for their commitment and efforts. They now know their work is valued and appreciated.

The council, the workforce and the union signed a partnership working agreement last year.

All parties are truly committed and working tirelessly to polish up what could only be considered a tarnished reputation.

The support of the GMB representatives has been invaluable.

This is quite a different picture to last summer when the workforce took industrial action under Sita management.

The support staff have also shown their commitment. During the changeover period call centre staff volunteered to work 12-hour days to respond to residents' enquiries and complaints.

We know at peak time many callers experienced delays in getting through but I can assure residents our call centre team are diligently logging and taking action on every call.

Supervisors and managers also supported crews by going back to help pick up any missed bins.

We are confident the early problems are now largely behind us. Change is never easy but we are determined to provide a quality service for residents.

Our next task is to reorganise the street cleansing rounds so they logically follow behind the refuse collection crews.

Our goal is to ensure residents are able to take new pride in cleaner streets.

The August bank holiday will result in refuse being collected one day later than normal.

Crews will be out on Saturday to pick up the regular Friday collection. All collections will return to normal from September 2.