Issue - meetings

Option 1: Continue to provide Highways Maintenance Services on behalf of the County as per the offer outlined in the report

Option 2: Discontinue provision of Highways Maintenance Services on behalf of the County

Advantages

·         Local knowledge gained through years of operating in the District is retained.

·         Services can be used by other Council Services (eg grounds maintenance, council housing, property services). This, in turn, helps improve efficiency and may reduce the net costs for the highways account.

·         The fixed costs associated with providing a full range of in-house direct services (eg waste collection, cleansing, grounds maintenance, repairs and maintenance, vehicle maintenance) are spread over a wider range of activities.

·         Consistent with aspects of the Council’s corporate plan, other than reducing costs.

·         Complements other public realm services delivered by the City Council on behalf of the County Council (eg verge grass cutting, highway tree maintenance, weed spraying, pavement gritting)

·         Removes any financial uncertainty of this service.

·         In purely financial terms is the cheaper option.

Disadvantages

·         Proposal put forward by County only provides a contribution to overheads incurred in delivering the service.

·         Officers will have to look at ways of reducing overall overheads of functional area, service and Council. (Which is work that is already underway in any case.)

·         The highways maintenance account is always subject to uncertainty. This will not improve the situation.

·         The proposal is outside of the Council’s agreed budgetary framework (see financial implications below)

·         Capacity will need to found from HR to deal with TUPE transfer.

·         Highways Maintenance capacity will be lost. This means that internal work that could offset the cost to the highways account can no longer be undertaken.

·         Reinforces split in functional responsibility between City / County which from a resident perspective is a negative.

·         Inconsistent with some aspects of the Corporate Plan (but consistent with reducing costs).

Risks

·         County may in the future decide to operate in a different way and take back the work. Staff will be the subject of a TUPE transfer. Arrangements would need to be made with regard to vehicles / equipment which would no longer be required.

·         As with previous arrangements there are no guarantees as to the volume of work that the City Council will be requested to undertake.

·         Currently the highways maintenance function is also involved in supporting the delivery of some other public realm functions which are delivered through a separate arrangement with County. Ceasing to deliver highways maintenance would have a negative impact on this arrangement.