(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Smith)
Cabinet received a report from the Head of Environmental Services to seek a decision on the future of the highway maintenance functions currently provided by the City Council on behalf of the County Council, prior to referral on to Council.
The options, options analysis, including risk assessment and officer preferred option, were set out in the report as follows:
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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 |
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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)
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· Removes any financial uncertainty of this service. · In purely financial terms is the cheaper option.
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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).
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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. |
The officer preferred option was option 1. That said, it was considered appropriate to seek a formal review clause in any agreement; a term of one year or so would seem reasonable. The agreement would also need to be flexible enough to deal with any other future fundamental changes in associated service delivery.
Councillor Smith proposed, seconded by Councillor Hamilton-Cox:-
“(1) That the recommendations, as set out in the report, be approved.”
Councillors then voted:-
Resolved unanimously:
(1) That Cabinet agrees to the principle of the City Council continuing to deliver a highways maintenance service on behalf of the County Council, on the terms set out within the report.
(2) That as the financial implications of delivering the service on theproposed terms fall outside of the existing budgetary framework, the final decision be referred to Council for approval at its meeting on 13 June 2012.
(3) That subject to Council’s approval of recommendation (1), the agreement of the detail of the terms of the highways maintenance service be delegated to the Head of Environmental Services.
Officer responsible for effecting the decision:
Head of Environmental Services
Reasons for making the decision:
The decision to support in principle the City Council’s continuation to provide Highways Maintenance Services on behalf of the County is consistent with the City Council’s Corporate Plan priorities in particular ‘clean, green and safe places’ and ‘community leadership.’