Barnet wants bin crews to start and finish at the depot, citing 8 rushing incidents and a serious injury. UNISON has sent 40 questions before it will respond.

Barnet Council has opened a consultation on changing when and where its bin crews start and finish work. The union representing them calls it the end of “task and finish”.

The detail comes from Barnet UNISON’s formal response, which the branch published on 10 September. The council’s own consultation paper has not been published. Everything below about the proposal is taken from the sections of it that the union quotes.

It opens a second front at the depot. Bin and street cleansing workers are already in a dispute over holiday pay and have voted to reject the council’s offer.

What the council is proposing

Under task and finish, a crew’s working day ends when its round is done. The union’s response shows the council wants more of the day tied to the depot.

According to the union’s response document:

  • the consultation is on “Waste & Recycling start and finish arrangements” and was issued on 17 August 2026
  • some loaders currently meet their driver on the route rather than starting at the depot, and the change would affect them
  • staff would return to the depot after their rounds, with tasks to do before they sign off
  • the proposal includes a break, and the union asks whether it would be compulsory

The union also says the council’s paper states the changes “are not a service restructure”, while running the consultation under its Restructuring and Change Management Procedure. It has asked which procedure actually applies.

The council’s safety case

The council’s reason is health and safety, the union says. Its response refers to three sets of figures in the council’s paper:

  • 8 running or rushing incidents (Section 3.2)
  • 1 separate serious injury incident
  • 59 PPE incidents (Section 3.3)

The union wants the detail behind those numbers. That includes the dates, the rounds and roles involved, and whether any investigation found that starting or finishing away from the depot actually caused an incident. “Or whether that link has been assumed,” the document says.

It also asks for a headcount for the food waste service, “to allow a genuine per-head comparison” against the incident figures.

The 40 questions

UNISON says it “cannot meaningfully respond” without the data the proposal is based on. It has sent the council 40 questions.

Bar chart of the 40 questions Barnet UNISON sent the council, by theme: incidents and safety 8, wider impact on staff 8, staffing and rounds 6, attendance monitoring 3, personal circumstances 3, and 12 across nine other themes

The biggest groups are about safety evidence and about staff:

  • Incidents and safety (8): accident and RIDDOR numbers, the incident detail, training records, the safe system of work and the round risk assessments
  • Wider impact (8): sickness absence, turnover, ill-health retirements, and staff with second jobs, which the council’s equality assessment mentions
  • Staffing and rounds (6): drivers, loaders, vacancies and rounds per day by waste stream

The rest cover attendance monitoring (3), personal circumstances (3), the alternatives (2), the workday (2) and parking (2), plus one each on vehicles, training, overtime, breaks, amenities and process.

One asks whether overtime would start inside or after contracted hours. The union also wants to know whether staff who finish early could leave before signing out.

It also asks whether the council considered using what its in-cab Bartec system and vehicle tracking already record. The union says the paper lists four alternatives the council looked at, but not the analysis:

  • keeping the current arrangements
  • more remote supervision
  • more monitoring
  • training and communication without changing attendance

What happens next

The union says it “reserve[s] the right to comment further” once it has the data. No closing date for the consultation appears in its response.

Two other dates matter in the wider dispute:

  • Monday 14 September: council and union were due to meet at the Joint Negotiating and Consultative Group over holiday pay. UNISON had published nothing on the outcome by 15 September, and the council’s website could not be reached.
  • Tuesday 13 October: the statutory ballot of UNISON members at The Barnet Group closes. That covers Barnet Homes and Your Choice Barnet, not the bin crews.

What it means for you

Your collections do not change because of this consultation. It is about crews’ working hours, not your bin day, and nothing has been decided.

It does matter for the dispute. UNISON is now challenging the council at the depot on two issues at once. A strike still needs a statutory postal ballot, and UNISON has not announced one for the bin crews.

Our Barnet bin collection days page has the normal schedule and the council’s own address checker. Any changed arrangements would show there first. See Barnet council tax bands for what each band pays for the service this year.

Sources

Related: Barnet bin collection days and Barnet bin workers reject holiday pay offer.