Communities, Councils and Customers

Narrowing inequalities gaps, making a difference to our most vulnerable citizens, helping people into employment, supporting the local economy, protecting the environment, promoting community empowerment, and giving people an equal chance in life, are motivators which sit at the heart of our role as public servants. As one of the largest employers in the area with a firm commitment to corporate social, ethical and environmental responsibility, we are in a strong position to support the wider ambitions of our constituent Councils and our communities, to enhance the lives of everyone in Tayside.

Here are some of our highlights during 2021/22: -

Supporting Local Employability

The Tay Cities deal sets out an ambitious agenda to increase employability and skills. We have teamed up with Council employability teams and Skills Development Scotland to create pathways to give guidance, training and employment opportunities with Tayside Contracts.

During 2021/22 we also explored opportunities for engagement with Developing the Young Workforce, recognising the disproportionate impact that the Covid-19 pandemic is anticipated to have on the employment prospects of young people. We have committed to the Young Person’s Guarantee, which is a commitment to connect every 16- to 24-year-old in Scotland to an employment opportunity.

We have formed a partnership with Dundee City Council’s Employability Team and Discover Work and together ran two week-long ‘Job Academies’ for individuals seeking work via this route, many of whom later secured employment within our Facilities Service Division. Job Academies are a fantastic opportunity for job seekers to gain invaluable advice, support and skills training and enables Tayside Contracts to showcase and offer exciting employment opportunities working at the heart of the community. We have been working in partnership with Council Employability Teams, Job Centre Plus and Remploy which, amongst other things, has involved attending recruitment fairs in Angus, Dundee and Perth & Kinross, to attract new employees to the organisation.

We have worked in partnership with the Job Centre in Perth and delivered ‘Meet the Employer’ presentations to Work Coaches. This has given the Work Coaches a more comprehensive understanding of the nature and demands of our roles so that they can talk confidently about our different roles and match candidates to our job vacancies effectively. This will continue throughout 2022/23 and be expanded to Job Centres in Dundee and Angus.

An example of our dedication to support young people into employment is demonstrated by our commitment to Apprentices:

Operations Roadworker Apprentices - Tayside Contracts apprentice training programme for 'construction roadworkers' has demonstrated further success with five apprentices all successfully completing their two-year apprenticeships and being offered permanent positions at their respective depots. This is a great achievement for all involved, especially the apprentices for showing the aptitude and skills to complete the programme.

Following the success, the Construction Division have continued the commitment to recruitment of apprentice roadworkers as a means of offering opportunities to young people, whilst addressing workforce shortages in the industry.

We have recently welcomed a further six apprentices across our Fairmuir, Ruthvenfield, Cairnie and Forfar Depots. This is a two-year apprenticeship programme with ‘on the job’ training supported by block release at college for 14 weeks throughout the first year. This leads to qualifications that benefit Tayside Contracts and the individual’s long term personal development.

Transport Apprentices - Tayside Contracts currently have six apprentice mechanics at various stages, from those just starting out, to those approaching the completion of the apprenticeship. They are engaged across the workshops at Peasiehill Depot Arbroath, Fairmuir Depot Dundee and Ruthvenfield Depot Perth. This continues to demonstrate our commitment to ‘growing our own’ , supporting the development of our young people and ensuring skills development in this part of industry which like many practical vocational jobs has experienced sever recruitment difficulties. Similar to the operations apprentices, their time is split between practical time in the workshop and theoretical studies through block release at College.

Supporting Equalities: Our Work with North East Sensory Services (NESS)

We work with a range of groups to give as many people as possible the opportunity to become part of our workforce, here is just one example.

NESS provides support to people in Dundee City and Angus who have significant sight and/or hearing loss. Prior to developing a working relationship with Tayside Contracts, NESS had been aware that Tayside Contracts already employed several profoundly deaf clients NESS found this refreshing, as a number of employers seemed reluctant to offer this client group work – possibly due to a lack of awareness of the support and advice available.

‘From day one, I found the Tayside Contracts to be totally understanding and supportive. Nothing was too much trouble. Tayside Contracts has no hesitation in employing people who are deaf, they had no issues about supporting their employees, making reasonable adjustments or providing BSL interpreters for our clients.

Tayside Contracts actively wanted to learn more about supporting our client group and queried about awareness training for Human Resources and staff teams. They have went above and beyond, even having information transcribed into BSL format and sent out to the clients’ email addresses so that they would fully understand what was being said.

We worked together on applying for Access to Work funding so that there is a “bank” of BSL interpreter hours for particular deaf employees. It meant that deaf employees could have the necessary induction, team meetings and mandatory training without Tayside Contracts having to pay for it’ .

Janice Grey, Employment Officer, NESS

Introduction of our Supported Volunteering Policy

Supporting Dundee Bairns

Supporting Communities is at the core of what we do. We wanted to give more of our staff the opportunity to help communities – whether this is through ‘hands on’ activities such as litter picking or supporting foodbanks, or through our professional/technical skills such as accountancy or logistics skills.

In 2021/22 Tayside Contracts introduced a Supported Volunteering Policy, meaning that employees who give up a day of their own time (by taking annual or unpaid leave) to volunteer will be granted another day’s paid leave to volunteer. Volunteering is a great way for employees to develop new skills, add variety to their work, engage with and contribute to the local community, or a charity. It’s also one of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing, as acts of kindness – like volunteering – is linked to increased wellbeing.

Further work is currently underway to partner with the Social Enterprise Social Good Connect which offers employees a digital matching platform to match employee interests and skills with relevant volunteering opportunities.

In 2021 we engaged with Dundee City Council Social Work and Perth & Kinross Council Early Years Team– with discussions to provide food safety training for Faith in the Communities (DCC) and nursery and schools staff (PKC). This training has been set up and being delivered during 2022/23.

We are proud to have worked in partnership with the Dundee Bairns Fun and Food Programme since April 2016. During that period, we have supported the provision of more than 300,00 meals to children who need additional support, across the city of Dundee.

Children who received and indeed rely on free school meals during school term time, often have no such provision during school holiday periods. It was this that inspired the aptly named Dundee Bairns Fun & Food Programme.

The activities of Dundee Bairns extended to include the provision of a Tea Club which is an after-school homework club that runs between 3.30 and 5.00pm and includes a 2-course hot evening meal.

The Dundee Bairns Tea Club has been able to evidence that even within a short time frame a homework and hot meal after school activity can have a positive impact on attainment, pupil perceptions of health and happiness, and teachers’ perceptions of pupil confidence and engagement with learning.

The first tea club for the winter months started in 2021 beginning at Rowantree Primary, closely followed by Downfield Primary and St Frances Primary.

Members of the hard-working Tayside Contract catering teams work closely with Dundee Bairns to prepare and serve the two-course hot meal to families and children attending homework groups.

Dundee's Waterfront Place is now complete with the impressive Whale sculpture taking pride of place. This new piece of public realm has raised the City’s profile and the Dundee Streetlighting Partnership between Tayside Contracts and the City Council, both designed and installed the lighting throughout the park.

As well as floodlights on grey 8 metre high poles with illuminated blue finials, the park is lit throughout with bollard lighting on the paths through the trees, and impressive under-bench lighting around the urban beach area. The area under the Whale itself and the digital playpark is lit with ground mounted lights which are colour changing and can be operated remotely.

Supporting our Local Economies

The Whale has Landed

With the help of specialist teams to install the fibre-optic lighting under the whale and the lighting for the fountains, our Tayside Contracts team have successfully completed the scheme which will be an attraction to locals and visitors alike over the coming years and enhancing Dundee’s reputation as a destination of choice for visitors.

Working with NFU Scotland to Support Local Food Producers

It is well known that Tayside is recognised - both nationally and internationally - as a place that produces the finest food and drink, and as the largest catering organisation in the Tayside area providing over 6 million meals to schools and communities in the Angus, Dundee City and Perth & Kinross areas every year, we are committed to taking full advantage of this by using as much locally sourced produce as possible.

Tayside Contracts in partnership with NFU Scotland, hosted an event in the Strathmore Hall, Forfar on Wednesday 2 March 2022 that brought together local food producers across Tayside, to explore working together to support Tayside businesses and increase the levels of locally grown and produced food served in school lunches. Several local food producers already supply produce for school and community meals, however we are looking to extend that to ensure that we continue to provide sustainable, high quality, healthy, nutritious and delicious meals to nearly 30,000 customers daily, whilst generating more income for local businesses. The event was very successful with presentations by our suppliers Total Produce, Brakes, Campbells Prime Meats and also from Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET), who visit schools in Angus and Dundee to talk to children and young people about food, food production and farming.We look forward to the relationships and opportunities that will undoubtedly grow from this collaboration.

Climate Change Plan

During the year we developed the first ever Tayside Contracts Climate Change Plan, which was approved by the Joint Committee in November 2021. Our Climate Change Plan sets out how the organisation will move towards net zero, influence others to take action on climate change, and how we will work with partners to limit the impact of climate change already being experienced in Tayside.

Developing Low Emissions Roads Surfacing Materials

As part of our Business Plan and Climate Change objectives, we are committed to continued action on the carbon emissions of asphalt production aa a positive step forward in the achievement of our collective NET ZERO ambitions.

We have been working with industry professional and client partners to introduce materials that are manufactured and supplied at lower temperatures than conventional asphalts. As a result, they will offer significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. They also deliver a range of site safety and productivity benefits.

We have always looked to innovate in asphalt design, manufacture, and installation, to meet infrastructure challenges. We have championed the reuse of construction material and the production of low carbon material since the early 2000’s and in 2007, with the introduction of our Cold Mix asphalt Tayset. in partnership with Nynas UK and Dundee University. We are continuing this journey and looking to support the request for all those involved in construction to use warm mix asphalts (WMA).

The principle behind WMA is that it is manufactured and applied at a temperature of 20 to 40°C lower than the equivalent currently used hot mix asphalt (HMA). This means carbon emissions will be up to 12% lower, with no compromise on performance, and no expected increase in cost.

There will be a phased approach to implementation, with preliminary trials at sites in Perth & Kinross, Dundee City and Angus. On the assumption of no issues, this would be followed by the introduction of a more extensive trial and ultimately for WMA material to be the default material supplied to all.

Now Tay Cuisine is in full operation across the three Council areas, we are seeing the maximum environmental benefits. The single site is far more energy efficient than multiple kitchens across the Tayside area.

Cycle to Work Scheme

As part of both our Wellbeing Strategy and Climate Change Plan, during 2021/22, we opened our Cycle to Work Scheme to all employees. This Scheme encourages active travel and offers financial savings to our employees. During 2021/22, 16 employees took up the opportunity to purchase a bike through our Cycle to Work Scheme.

We have developed a ‘Tayside Contracts Community Fund’ where we will support community empowerment, by offering local community groups our services (e.g. catering for events, minor road/parking repairs; small maintenance jobs; professional guidance), at no cost to the community groups - with groups from all parts of Tayside given an equal opportunity to access this support. This will be launched in 2022/23. We will review our Procurement Strategy to ensure that sufficient weight is given to fair work, community benefit and procurement equality duties. We will support this by reviewing our community benefit clauses on our tender documentation, considering best practice from other organisations - to demonstrate the power of effective procurement to lever social and environmental benefits.

We have a detailed Climate Change Action Plan, and will be working through our actions during 2022/23 and beyond