Members of the public were finally given to opportunity to vent their anger at plans to privatise rubbish collections at a meeting with council chiefs.

More than 100 people met with council leader Jenny Dawe and coalition partner Steve Cardownie, who went head to head in October on a vote over the services, as well as representatives from other parties.

The meeting was called to allow community councils, business representatives and other organisations discuss plans for environmental services.

Moves to consult the public follow the council’s failure to decide whether to approve proposals to outsource bin collection, recycling and road maintenance, amongst other services, to external company Enterprise.

Officials were forced to postpone the decision to November 24 when SNP councillors had a change of heart, choosing to oppose plans by coalition partners the Liberal Democrats to privatise services.

This left Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors for and Labour, Green and SNP members against proposals and resulted on the meeting being delayed so that individuals could consider “new information”.

Speaking on Thursday, Councillor Dawe said the Liberal Democrat group were still undecided: “We quite genuinely asked for another month.

"A report by Ernst and Young doesn't become available until tomorrow and we're going to get as many people to read and assess it.

“We haven't discussed what we'll do at the next council meeting. But on the basis of the information I had at the last council meeting I thought Enterprise had the better value.”

At the meeting the group heard a presentation from Mark Turley, the council's director of Services for Communities, who attempted to justify recommendations to outsource management of rubbish collection, road maintenance and recycling to private sector firm Enterprise.

But a number of the audience expressed dissatisfaction with Mr Turley's take, criticising lack of information, particularly on the public sector option, which it is claimed would save £45 million as opposed to Enterprise's savings of £72 million over the proposed seven year contract.

Other issues raised during the meeting were workers' rights, the risk of enlisting private companies, particularly in the light of the city's trams fiasco, and the lack of consultation done in the lead-up to the decision.

Deputy council leader Steve Cardownie admitted public involvement had been lacking.

He said: “I take the point as being made – there's been a complete lack of consultation.”

Commenting on his group's change of opinion over the matter, Councillor Cardownie denied they had made a 'u-turn', though stressed that they were not likely to back down on the decision.

He said: “This is the end of a process so I don't accept that SNP did a u-turn. We weighed everything up and came to the conclusion that we prefer the in-house option.

“The Lib Dems have not come out and said what they prefer. But they're Lib Dems we're SNP, these things happen in coalitions.”

Councillor Dawe echoed the sentiment of her coalition partner: “You have to work very hard at coalitions, sometimes you have to give up your own bug bears and ideas and come to a compromise.”

After many of the questions asked at the meeting were left unanswered, council chief executive Sue Bruce promised they would be responded to and uploaded to the council website.

IN DETAIL

Edinburgh residents to quiz councillors over privatisation plans

Privatisation of Edinburgh's rubbish collection debated at public meeting