Agenda item

To receive a briefing in respect of the options for a Shared Public Protection/Joint Regulatory Service with other Berkshire Authorities which is coming forward for consideration by the Executive.

The Chief Officer: Environment & Public Protection reported that this report was due to be considered by the Executive on 27 September 2016. He stated that the proposals had been put forward from the perspective of looking forward and finding savings. The service was already in the bottom quartile in terms of funding and was delivered by a small team.

The proposals were estimated to create £151,000 of direct cost savings. Significant savings would be achieved from reducing the number of managers needed. Governance would need to be carefully considered, if the re3 governance model was adopted this would place Executive Members and senior officers at the centre of all key decisions relating to budgets, savings and potential savings. The potential to expand the service was also feasible within these proposals.

The alternative to these proposals would be to outsource the service to an external provider, this would inevitably mean a loss of control of the service.

The implications of the proposals were significant for staff, given that there would be a number of posts that would need to be lost and a number of redundancies. Staff had now been consulted on the proposals and feedback from staff had generally been positively.

The start date for the joint service if the proposals were to be adopted would be 13 January 2017. At this point a joint committee would take on the role of governing the service.

The most notable change as a result of these proposals would be that the pest control service would no longer be delivered, these needs would be picked up in a different way. 

The following points were made:

·         These proposals had been driven by the current financial situation and had not been driven through the Council’s transformation process. The Director reported that the majority of staff were supportive and the proposals would mean that the majority of services could be continued and that the service would be more resilient.

·         Members’ commented that a significant amount of funding had been committed to the transformation process and that proposals that came from in-house could be just as viable and more cost effective.

·         The Chief Officer reported that the Joint Committee would be responsible for setting and delivering the service plan. This committee would consist of six voting members and would establish their terms of reference..

·         The cemetery and crematorium were firmly not within the scope of these proposals and would not be part of a shared service.

·         One of the challenges of the proposed shared service would be integrating the three Council IT systems so that they can be accessed throughout the shared service.

·         It was confirmed that there would be a client-officer role, so that Members could secure contact as they needed.   

·         The Chief Officer reported that a number of other local authorities had adopted a shared service. He added that two other local authorities had already expressed interest in joining this proposed joint service but that the addition of other authorities would not be considered until the service had been sufficiently embedded and established.