Summary
A simpler service for Green Waste Club
A new platform built for the service as it is today: 44,000 households across Arun and Melton, run by a team that should not have to fight its tools. Keep Direct Debit, remove the manual work around it, and move members across in January, one council at a time, before February's renewals.
01 · The decision
What we are asking you to decide
- Approve a two-week discovery, £16,500 fixed, starting 5 October. It confirms the scope, puts access in place and ends with a fixed price for the new service. If Biffa goes no further, the outputs are yours to keep.
- Approve the new service, subject to the fixed price confirmed on 16 October. Our estimate today is £217,800.
- Note our recommendation to keep Direct Debit. Retiring it would cost more to build and ask 35,000 members to change how they pay.
- Decide whether to consider extending the current contract to September 2027. It is the lowest-risk alternative to a January move, and worth deciding deliberately rather than by default.
| Cost | Amount, excluding VAT |
|---|---|
| Discovery, 5 to 16 October | £16,500 fixed |
| The new service, including discovery, price fixed on 16 October | £217,800 |
| Contingency, used only with Biffa's agreement | £33,000 |
| Support from Blott, priced per household | £19,800 in year one, falling |
| Hosting, paid by Biffa to Microsoft | £12,000 to £13,800 a year |
| Payback, from Biffa's own volumes | Between 2 and 3½ years |
02 · What we heard
Your words, which the rest of this answers
‘The prize is a simpler service, not a smarter one.’
‘It is not needed for the scale we're at now.’
‘Do it properly and get it done right first time.’
‘That button is obvious. That's why I press it.’
‘Putting information in different locations. That's where they're making mistakes and missing things.’
‘We don't notice the problem until it's a problem.’
03 · Today
Where the service stands
A lot already works, and it deserves credit. Members can join online by card or Direct Debit, cancel and pay the bin removal fee, order replacement and additional bins, and report a missed bin straight into Whitespace. Much of that is recent work, and we carry it across rather than rebuild it for the sake of it.
The platform underneath was designed for six or seven authorities and around 100,000 members. The service now runs two councils and less than half that membership, and the current contract ends in March 2027.
04 · The real problem
Not what the platform can do, but how hard the service is to run around it
Direct Debit data moves by hand between Joomla, Excel and PTX. 35 hours a week, with no cover when that person is away.
Moving home means closing one account and opening another, and can take two weeks if another account is still open at the new address.
The same missed bin is recorded in several places, and errors surface only when a member calls back.
Asked how many members use the online journeys, the honest answer today is that there is no way to tell.
05 · Success
What good looks like by spring 2027
Most contact happens online
The target is 80 per cent. For the first time it will be measured, from the first day.
April and May feel like any other month
April is the busiest month today, with 3,151 calls and 3,124 emails. The rise is absorbed by members serving themselves, not by the team.
The Direct Debit week is gone
No spreadsheets, and no single point of failure.
Nobody loses a subscription because of the change
Every member, mandate and payment reconciled and signed off before each council moves.
New starters productive in days
On screens that need no training guide.
Cost per household falls every year
And the total falls with the membership if a council takes the service back.
Further ahead, Chris described a service efficient enough that councils would rather buy it from Biffa than run it themselves. We think that is achievable, and the platform is built so that a new council can be added without rebuilding it.
Our approach
Every item is tagged with the tier it sits in. Bronze goes live in January. Silver and Gold follow from September 2027, after the March to August freeze. Enhancement items are optional and priced separately.
01 · Principles
Three rules decide what goes in
Your brief's own test. We hold our ideas to it as hard as anyone else's, and build for 44,000 members across two councils, not the membership the current platform was designed around.
Donna's test: ‘That button is obvious. That's why I press it.’ If a new starter needs a guide to use part of the service, that part is not finished.
Every journey and every channel is recorded from the first day, so the move to 80 per cent online is proven rather than assumed.
02 · Residents
Carry across what works, close the gaps
| Journey | Today | New service | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Join, by card or Direct Debit, including an existing bin | Online | Carried across | Bronze |
| Renew by card | Online, every year | Carried across. Recurring card payment removes the yearly step | Bronze Silver |
| Renew by Direct Debit | Automatic, but every mandate reinstated by hand each year | Rolling mandate, nothing to reinstate | Bronze |
| Cancel, annual payer | Online, with the bin removal fee | Carried across | Bronze |
| Cancel, monthly payer | A form to customer services, who work out what is owed | Online, balance calculated automatically | Bronze |
| Replacement or extra bin | Online, sent to Whitespace | Carried across | Bronze |
| Report a missed bin | Online with a Whitespace check. Melton's form emails advisers | The same online route for every member, confirming the council and which bin | Bronze |
| Moving home | Advisers close one account, open another and move the payment. Up to two weeks | One journey. The subscription moves with the member | Bronze |
| Change contact details | Contact form | Done by the member online | Bronze |
| Get in touch | Free-text email until 1 October, then forms | Structured forms that confirm the council, service and bin | Bronze |
| Sign in and link an account | User name or email, and an account number members lose | One sign-in by email. Linking by email and address | Bronze |
| Letters for members with no email | Printed and posted by advisers every Monday | Produced and posted automatically | Silver |
| Bin delivery | Members cannot see progress and phone to chase | Delivery status visible to the member | Silver |
Phones first. The site is rebuilt for mobile, and the historic filler content goes. Donna described content that is ‘there to fill the page more than it serves anything else.’ It will not survive the move.
Concept screen to follow: moving home. Before, five steps across two accounts and a wait. After, one change of address.
03 · Customer services
Built as much for advisers as for residents
Member, property, payments and what the crew recorded in Whitespace, in one place.
A missed bin no longer needs a note in one system and a record in another. One action does both.
Failed payments, bank details that will not validate, stalled deliveries and moves waiting on another account, in one queue with the next step attached.
Short sessions as each part is built and guidance inside the screens. No manuals. Priced as its own line.
Members confirm a fix worked, so nobody waits for a second call to find out.
The member's record appears as the call arrives. Round change messages generated from member data.
Concept screen to follow: the adviser view. One member, one screen, with the next action at the top.
04 · Payments
Where most of the saving sits
The Direct Debit week today
- Export from Joomla
- Rework in Excel
- Import into PTX
- Export back out of PTX
- Rework again to fit Joomla
- Import back into Joomla
Plus an amendments spreadsheet, and a shared log for every new mandate. 35 hours a week.
In the new service Bronze
- A mandate change is entered once, and bank details are checked while it is typed
- It goes to PTX automatically
- PTX's confirmation updates the member's record
- Anything that fails lands in the adviser queue
The spreadsheets go.
Around 40,000 mandates are reinstated each year out of habit rather than rule. Rolling mandates end that, subject to PTX confirming the approach.
The 9,000 card members renew automatically. Card details stay with Opayo. It follows go-live because card members already renew online, so nothing breaks while it waits.
Payments straight from a member's bank through a regulated provider. Worth revisiting once recurring payments of this kind are established in the UK.
05 · Data and rules
The subscription belongs to the member
Today an account is tied to a property, which is why a move means closing one account and opening another. In the new service the member holds the subscription, and the property, identified by the same reference Whitespace uses, is part of it. A move becomes a change of address. Bronze
| Rule your team applies today | How the new service handles it |
|---|---|
| Contract terms | Set per council: 12 months only for two contracts, up to 36 for the other |
| Additional bins | Charged pro-rata so every bin shares one renewal date |
| New sign-ups | 14-day cooling-off refund, otherwise non-refundable with a manager override |
| Arrears | Account closes two weeks after a missed payment and a collection is raised for the bin |
| Bereavement | Account closed and outstanding fees waived, handled as its own path |
| Assisted collections | Requested online and reviewed against each council's criteria |
| Someone calling for a member | Can report a collection issue, cannot see account details |
| Christmas suspension | Already reflected in renewal dates, so nothing is adjusted |
| Records | Around 70,000, kept for six years under a defined retention and deletion policy |
06 · Reporting
Straight into Power BI, and proof that it worked
No more cutting down a 53 MB download. Exports are filtered before, not after.
By council and contract, sign-ups and cancellations, card against Direct Debit, monthly against annual, no email held, renewals by month, failed payers, address changes, and how often each member gets in touch.
Every form records its reason, so contact can finally be split by cause.
Every journey records its channel, giving a baseline in the first month and a measured answer on 80 per cent online.
07 · Platform and scope
Inside Biffa's own Azure
The service runs in Biffa's Microsoft Azure to Biffa IT's specification, and advisers sign in with their Biffa accounts. It connects to Whitespace, to PTX by its file transfer interface, to Opayo, and later to Genesys. PTX and Opayo stay. If a payments partner can offer card processing for less, we will bring it to you as an option rather than assume it. Public pages meet WCAG 2.2 AA, to be confirmed with you. Technical detail is in the Appendix.
In scope: Arun and Melton only. Out of scope: Hereford, replacing Whitespace, PTX, Opayo or Genesys, depot operations, and marketing to win new members.
08 · Enhancements
AI-native services, once the service is stable
Contact triage
Reads each form and email, pulls out the account and address, records the reason, routes it and drafts a reply for approval. It tackles response times that average 48 hours and reach two weeks at peak.
Payment exceptions
Works through failed and returned collections, contacts the member and prepares the fix for approval. It never moves money.
Home move chains
Contacts the previous occupant and tracks the reply, instead of an adviser chasing for ten days.
Peak forecasting
Predicts contact volume week by week from the renewal calendar, so staffing can be planned rather than absorbed.
QR-coded bins
Raised in our session. A code on each bin that a resident scans to report a problem and a crew scans to record one. The two reports meet instantly against the same bin in Whitespace, so nobody waits for the crew's note. The stickers and fitting them across 44,000 bins would be a Biffa cost, which is why it needs scoping first.
Delivery, migration and team
The migration is the critical path, not the build. It comes first because it sets the date. No member has to sign anything again, the councils move one at a time, and your team signs off every member before each move.
01 · Moving members
44,000 members, 70,000 records, no one re-signing
Mandates are held by PTX, not Joomla. As long as the bureau and service user number stay the same, confirmed in the first fortnight, every mandate stays where it is. The move is linking each of the 35,000 Direct Debit members to the mandate PTX already holds, and proving every link.
The new service runs one complete Direct Debit cycle alongside the current process. Its figures are compared line by line with what PTX actually collects, and any difference is fixed before anyone moves.
Two full rehearsals first. Then the smaller council moves, and the larger follows two weeks later once the first has run cleanly.
Before each council moves, Donna and Kirstie receive a reconciliation of every member, mandate, subscription, bin and payment, and sign it off before cutover.
Joomla stays available, read-only, for 30 days after the final move, then is switched off as its contract ends.
Joomla passwords cannot move, so members sign in with a link sent to their email. They are told well before February.
02 · The date
Why January, not 1 March
That is 35,731 renewals in seven months, around four in five members, with February alone carrying one in six. Nothing structural can change between March and August. So 1 March is the latest the service can go live, not the date to aim for: going live then would mean an untried service handling 5,894 renewals in its first month, with no chance to fix anything structural until September.
03 · Recommendation
January, with one alternative worth deciding on
We recommend: move members in January
The smaller council around 12 January, the larger around 26 January. A live month of renewals before February's peak, February kept free as contingency, and 1 March left as the final backstop.
It depends on four dates, which we report against weekly: Joomla data by 12 October, PTX file transfer access and a rolling mandate decision by 30 October, and core services ready by 7 December. If one slips, the move goes to February, still inside the window.
The alternative: extend to September 2027
The March deadline comes from the current contract, not from the service. Extending would let members move in the quietest part of the year, with everything built and tested and the freeze no longer a factor.
It is the lowest-risk path. It costs whatever the extension costs and delays the saving by six months. It is Chris's decision, and we would rather it was made deliberately than ruled out by default.
04 · Phases and gates
Biffa decides at every gate whether we carry on
| Phase | Dates | Gate |
|---|---|---|
| Before award | Now | IT Security's checks under way |
| 0. Discovery | 5 to 16 October | Gate 1. Scope agreed in plain terms, access to Joomla, PTX and Whitespace in place, and a fixed price for the new service |
| 1. Build | 19 October to 4 December | Gate 2, 7 December. Core member and payment services ready for the shadow run |
| 2. Prove | 7 December to 8 January | Gate 3. Shadow cycle matched, both rehearsals passed, every journey tested and approved by Biffa, penetration test and Biffa IT sign-off complete |
| 3. Move members | Around 12 and 26 January | Reconciliation signed off by Donna and Kirstie before each council moves |
| 4. Through the peak | To 31 March | The full team stays on through February's renewals. Joomla switched off as its contract ends |
| Silver | From September 2027 | After the March to August freeze |
05 · Team
A dedicated team, around six at the busiest point
Scott-Ashley Whiteley
Accountable to Chris for the outcome, the commercial relationship and the board.
Benjamin Yang
The single named person for every technical decision, each written so that anyone can say yes or no to it.
Design, build and migration
A product designer, back-end and front-end engineers, a data and migration engineer, a test engineer and a delivery manager.
Working sessions are led from London, and the build runs across our London, Cape Town and Colombo studios. That spread keeps December a full working month, which this timeline depends on.
06 · Ways of working
What you can hold us to
Decisions made, and open assumptions reviewed.
Working software, not slides.
With StudioSpace invited.
Dates reported against commitments, with the options the moment one is at risk.
If a contact centre manager cannot say yes or no to it, we have not finished thinking.
We begin the PQQ before award and do the legwork.
Assurance
How the service is kept secure, how quality is protected, what you can expect after go-live, and what we need from Biffa to hit the dates. Protecting members through the move is covered under Delivery.
01 · Security
Security, compliance and data protection
To Biffa IT's specification. Only the public pages are reachable from outside. Biffa IT confirms the design and IT Security checks Blott and the service before go-live.
Advisers see only what their role needs. Administrative access is limited to named people and reviewed by Biffa IT every quarter.
Members and advisers both pay on Opayo's secure pages, so card handling stays exactly as it is today.
The Guarantee and advance notice wording stay as they are. Any change for rolling mandates goes to PTX and the sponsoring bank first.
Arun is controller, Biffa processor, Blott sub-processor. Six-year retention, a written deletion policy, full export at any time, and a data protection impact assessment before go-live.
Every line of code is reviewed by an engineer and scanned before release.
Monthly scanning with fixes reported, monthly updates and critical ones within days, a penetration test before go-live and every year, and a written incident process.
Continuous backups. We propose restoring within four hours, losing no more than 15 minutes of data, to be agreed with Biffa IT.
How it is built, deployed and structured is documented and handed to Biffa IT. Another supplier or Biffa's own team could take it over.
02 · Quality
What you approve is what members get
Nothing is released or closed until your team has tested it, on an environment that mirrors the live service.
Payments, cancellation and moving home are tested end to end on every release.
On the phones and browsers members use, including an older Android phone.
Before go-live, so the busiest week holds.
If a change causes a problem, it is rolled back.
03 · Service levels
After go-live
| Priority | Example | Response | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Critical | Service down, or payments failing | Within 1 hour, including out of hours | Worked on continuously until fixed |
| 2. High | A journey not working for some members | Within 4 working hours | Within 2 working days |
| 3. Normal | A minor fault with a workaround | Next working day | Next scheduled release |
| 4. Change | Something new you would like | Within 2 working days | Scheduled with you |
04 · Risks
The handful that matter
| Risk | What we do about it | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| A member's payment or subscription is affected by the move | Mandates stay with PTX, a December shadow run, one council at a time, reconciliation signed off before each move, and a way back | Blott, with Donna and Kirstie |
| January slips | The four dates tracked weekly. February held as contingency. The extension remains an option | Blott, with Chris |
| Setting up sign-in generates calls before February | Email-link sign-in, members told early, advisers given a short script | Blott, with Kirstie |
| The current platform does things nobody has written down | A full baseline in discovery, and a walkthrough from the current supplier after award | Blott, with StudioSpace |
| The team finds the new service harder than the old one | Built with your team week by week, held to the obvious-button rule, short sessions instead of manuals | Blott, with Donna |
| Biffa IT's timings slip | Dates for the Azure specification, sign-in setup and penetration test agreed in week one | Biffa IT |
05 · What we need
From Biffa, and by when
| What | By | Why |
|---|---|---|
| An IT Security contact, so the PQQ can start | Now | So checks finish before an October start |
| Whitespace connection documentation | Before 5 October | Already offered. Removes the largest integration unknown |
| Biffa IT's Azure specification | 9 October | Environments are built to it first |
| Access to Joomla's data | 12 October | The migration starts by profiling every record |
| Bureau and service user number confirmed | 16 October | What means no member re-signs |
| Sign-in setup, Opayo test access, which council moves first | 16 October | Needed before screens can be tested and the cutover planned |
| PTX file transfer access, and a rolling mandate decision | 30 October | For linking mandates and the shadow run |
| A penetration test window | Booked by 30 October | It sits on the path to go-live |
| Time from Donna and Kirstie | Throughout | About half a day a week each, rising to three or four days each in December for testing |
Investment
Every price comes from a line-by-line estimate in days, at a blended £660 a day across our London, Cape Town and Colombo studios. The three calculators below use the same figures as the written proposal, so you can change the assumptions and see what moves. All prices exclude VAT.
01 · How it is built
A fixed-fee discovery, then a fixed price
25 days, 5 to 16 October, included in the price rather than on top. It ends with a fixed price for the new service. If Biffa goes no further, the outputs are yours.
£33,000, because nobody has yet seen inside Joomla, Whitespace or Biffa IT's Azure setup. Used only with your agreement, never on extra scope, and not charged if not needed.
Our team designs and builds 35 to 40 per cent faster with AI assistance. We applied that only to the work it genuinely speeds up, not to workshops, testing with members, your own testing or the migration's fixed timings. It takes around 16 per cent off the total, and the timeline does not shorten.
Whitespace differing from its documentation, Biffa IT's Azure setup needing more than standard, or any change to the Direct Debit bureau. We would say by how much before you commit.
02 · Build your investment
Choose the tiers, see the total
Direct Debit
Total, excluding VAT
£217,800
330 days of work
Invoiced by gate
Discovery at Gate 1, then the rest of the new service in four equal stages: start of build, Gate 2, Gate 3, and once both councils have moved. Later tiers are invoiced when they start.
03 · Direct Debit
With and without it
| Keep Direct Debit, recommended | Retire Direct Debit | |
|---|---|---|
| New service | £217,800, 330 days | About £234,300, 355 days |
| Members who must act | None | 35,000 must set up a card payment |
| Cost per collection | Direct Debit rates | Card rates, typically higher, across 25,000 monthly payers |
| Risk to income | None from the change | Every member who does not switch lapses |
| The manual week | Designed out | Designed out, but only once the switch is complete |
04 · Running the service
Support priced by the household, so it falls with the membership
Move it to see what happens if a council takes the service back in-house.
How it works. A fixed £5,280 a year covers what must happen whatever the membership: monitoring, monthly security scanning, patching and cover when something goes wrong. Everything else is priced per active household, 33p in year one and 25p from year two, counted each quarter from the service's own records.
Hosting is paid by Biffa to Microsoft: around £12,000 to £13,800 a year at list prices, and likely less where Biffa's existing Azure setup and licences can be shared. Joomla is already hosted in Biffa's Azure, so the true increase is this figure less what Joomla costs today.
Support, year one
£19,800
45p a household
Support, year two onwards
£16,280
37p a household
A fixed fee of £19,800 would cost 45p a household.
05 · Payback
Biffa's volumes, your assumptions
Today 80 to 90 per cent of interactions are calls and emails. Reaching 80 per cent online would remove around 70 per cent of them.
Enter it to include the running-cost saving against the new service's £32,700 in year one.
Saving each year
£65,300
£39,100 of adviser time, £26,200 of Direct Debit administration
The new service pays back in
3.3 years
Against £217,800. Direct Debit administration counts 80 per cent of the 35-hour week as released.
Not counted, each of which shortens it: the rest of the £80,000 to £90,000 Biffa spends on Direct Debits, including reinstatement letters; bank-detail rework; chasing incomplete emails; repeat calls; and new starters productive in days. Released time is capacity, absorbed through natural turnover as your brief describes, not a cut.
06 · Enhancements
Priced one by one
| Enhancement | Price |
|---|---|
| Shared foundation: approval queue, action log, safeguards and data protection impact assessment. Needed once | £11,880 |
| Contact triage, recommended first | £8,580 |
| Payment exceptions | £6,600 |
| Home move chains | £5,280 |
| Peak forecasting | £4,620 |
| All four, with the foundation | £36,960 |
| QR-coded bins, an idea raised in our session | To scope |
Each carries a small monthly running cost for the AI service it uses, quoted with the enhancement once volumes are known. None is recommended before the service is stable.
Appendix
Where each of your objectives is answered, Chris's priorities in his order, and the technical detail for Biffa IT.
01 · Your objectives
Every objective in the brief, and where it is answered
| Your objective | How your brief measures it | Our answer | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reduce the cost of serving each household | Cost per household falls year on year as the base reduces | Support priced per household with a small fixed element, falling each year and with the membership | Investment |
| Move routine contact to self-service | Most interactions online, fewer calls and emails per thousand members at peak | Existing journeys carried across, the gaps closed, every journey measured by channel from day one | Our approach |
| Complete and stabilise payment automation | Renewals running automatically, Direct Debit administration no longer a full-time manual role | The manual week designed out, bank details checked on entry, rolling mandates, recurring card | Our approach |
| Simplify the platform and its processes | Surface area retired, new starters productive in days | Built for 44,000 members, one screen per member, everything typed once, no training guides | Our approach |
| Make reporting fit for purpose | By area and contract, with no manual stripping | Direct into Power BI, filtered exports, the reports your team asks for most | Our approach |
| Restore delivery predictability | Committed dates met, briefs delivered complete | Dates reported against commitments, warning before a date is at risk, completeness measured | Delivery, Assurance |
| Protect the membership throughout | No interruption, no lost subscriptions, compliance maintained | Mandates stay with PTX, a December shadow run, one council at a time, reconciliation signed off, a way back | Delivery, Assurance |
02 · Chris's priorities
In his order
| Priority | Where |
|---|---|
| 1. Self-service portal for residents | Our approach: residents |
| 2. Automated processes for the customer service team | Our approach: customer services and payments |
| 3. Integration with Whitespace as a minimum | Our approach: platform |
| 4. Contact us forms and enquiries | Our approach: residents |
| 5. Payment integration for cards | Our approach: payments |
| 6. Easy to use and self-running platform | Our approach: principles. Assurance: quality. Investment: running costs |
03 · Technical detail
For Biffa IT
| Layer | Choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Portal and adviser screens | Next.js with TypeScript, one codebase | Fast on phones, accessible, one thing to maintain |
| Services and scheduled work | Node with TypeScript on Azure Functions, behind Azure Service Bus queues | Pay per use, and a slow Whitespace or PTX never leaves a member waiting |
| Database | Azure SQL Database, with Prisma | Read directly by Power BI, suited to payments and audit |
| Hosting | Azure Container Apps inside the Biffa network | Scales up for the peak and down overnight |
| Staff sign-in | Microsoft Entra ID | Existing Biffa accounts, access reviews run by Biffa IT |
| Resident sign-in | Microsoft Entra External ID | Identity stays within Biffa's tenant |
| Property reference | Whitespace property identifier | One property record for advisers and the depot |
| Bank details | Modulus checking at entry | Errors caught before a mandate is submitted |
| PTX | File transfer by API | Confirmed available. Replaces the manual round trip |
| Azure Communication Services | Stays inside Azure. Letters remain with PTX | |
| Measurement | Journey and channel events in the same database | Reported in Power BI, no third-party tracking |
| Infrastructure | Bicep, Key Vault, private endpoints, web application firewall | Reproducible, documented and handed to Biffa IT |