Nearly £1 million has been spent solving unforeseen problems with waste collection in Hertsmere in the past two years.

The overspend was revealed in a critical report into the waste services budget between April 2006 and March 2008, which was put together after a year’s research by Hertsmere Borough Council’s housing and environment scrutiny committee.

The cross-party committee blamed the £973,000 deficit on poor planning and failure to assess risks. The report also warned of future problems because the committee’s advice had so far gone unheeded.

The borough council’s fortnightly additional bin collection (ABC) scheme started in November 2006.

Councillor Ann Harrison, leader of the Labour group and lead member for the review, said: “Every time more money was needed to be approved by the executive, there was no indication of the overall budget and the extent of the overspend.

“Nobody seemed to know what was going on or where the money was going. It was virtually impossible to find out what happened when we were trying for the purpose of this review.

“Even in the second year we went over budget. Although the overspend was horrendous, one of the aims of this review was to prevent this from happening again in the future.”

The report states that over the two-year period, waste services went over budget by £973,000. About half of this figure was covered by income from recycling contractors plus extra unbudgeted funding from council coffers. The rest came from other departments that had money left over from their budget. Addressing the meeting on Wednesday night, Ms Harrison added: “ If you don’t know what you are spending and don’t have a strong control of the spending, you will inevitably spend more than you should.”

Reasons for the overspend included the increases in green waste collection, the transportation of waste to a site in west London and additional collections. But some of the extra money spent is still left unexplained.

Councillor Jean Heywood, the Conservative administration’s environment portfolio holder, disputed claims officers and councillors were not clear on how much was being spent. She said many of the extra costs could not have been predicted.

“I don’t think there has ever been any doubt over what was being spent,” she said. “The officers have always known what was going on. It is a lot of money but when we started, we were recycling at a rate of 12 per cent. Now it is 45 per cent. We are working in leaps and bounds.

“There are incidents we couldn’t have predicted including the cost of transporting the waste and the price of fuel going up. It is an important service everyone relies on and, considering what we have achieved today, we are doing extremely well.”

The committee recommended that further requests for funding should include the project’s original budget and details about how the project is being managed. It also highlighted a need for stronger project management. The draft document also criticises Hertfordshire County Council for not providing a green waste recycling facility in Mill Hill as it had promised in 2006.

This means green waste has had to be transported to Harefield in west London, creating extra costs.