The Chairman has agreed to add this as an urgent item to enable Members to comment on the report prior to it going to Cabinet on 15 December 2016. Report to Follow.

Craig Miller, Head of Community Protection & Enforcement introduced the report and highlighted the following key points:

Ø  Cabinet approved in principle in June 2016 for officers to look at merging the civil enforcement offer and community warden roles.

Ø  Market research was carried out on the best way to merge the roles.

Ø  The paper included the updated research results including market intelligence and testing.

Ø  The new report requested a slight change in direction as the original proposal was based on work carried out by other local authorities such as Westminster. However, when officers looked more closely at what they had done, the roles were not to be as originally described which concerned officers.

Ø  The marshal service used by Westminster Council were civil enforcement officers by a different name which did not align with what the officers wanted the Borough’s wardens to do.

Ø  Members had also raised concerns regarding aligning the two roles together.

Ø  The market intelligence results had also raised some concerns.

Ø  The paper now requested to amend the proposal to remove the warden element and continue on the civil enforcement route.

Ø  The Lead Member approved a live pilot in the Borough to be conducted with a third party provider.

Ø  That was in operation and was live at the time of the meeting.

Ø  The recommendations were to agree to amend the original proposal and carry out a procurement exercise to see if a third party solution would work and then to appoint a contractor.

Ø  Community warden services had been taken out of the paper altogether and had been put alongside environmental services.

Ø  The Head of Community Protection & Enforcement said the team were looking at multi-skilling officers to preserve community services.

The Chairman stated he understood when the Panel discussed the paper in the past, concerns had been raised by Members so it was good to see that amended. He added that different schemes worked for different councils; community wardens were the eyes and ears of the community so removing them from the proposal was a good thing. Cllr beer stated he was fully supportive of the proposal and the new paper answered a lot of concerns. It was the right way forward. He was concerned regarding putting parking services to a third party as they would be in it for the profit. Simon Fletcher, Strategic Director of Operations stated the paper did propose that and it put the council in a position to go out to market and get the contract that was right for residents. The Head of Community Protection & Enforcement confirmed that parking was regulated and would be safeguarded so it would not be for profit making. Staff would be protected by TUPE so if Cabinet agreed the proposals, current staff would be protected. The Strategic Director of Operations said the team would test through procurement to maintain control of parking. The pilot was to see if the concept would work in the Borough. The council had been able to hold full control and deployment or resources. The Head of Community Protection & Enforcement confirmed that Cabinet in October 2016 approved the parking strategy which balanced the needs of the Town Centre and Rural areas so any third party provider would have to work to that. Cllr Bicknell commented there would be other papers which would have similar concerns so there was a need to ensure that whatever Cabinet decided on had to be more effective and a high quality service for residents. He added that parking services did make money, but the bottom line was the council then had to spend that money on parking things.

The Head of Community Protection & Enforcement stated the council struggled when events like Ascot took place as the council had small resource issues and that placed pressure on the resources. The proposals meant the council could improve service and increase resources while reducing pressure on parking in the Borough. He added that all financial information would be presented to Panel in April 2017.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Highways, Transport and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Panel endorsed the recommendations to Cabinet:

That Cabinet:

i.              Agrees the amendment of the ‘in principle’ approval given by Cabinet on 30 June 2016, removing Community Warden services from the scope of the proposal and that third party service providers now be considered for Civil Enforcement services only.

ii.            Delegates authority to the Strategic Director of Operations & Customer Services in conjunction with the Lead Member for Environmental Services to conclude a competitive procurement process for the provision of Civil Enforcement services within the Royal Borough.

iii.           Requests a further report be submitted to Cabinet in April 2017 detailing the outcome of the competitive procurement process and if appropriate seeking authority to award a contract to the preferred bidder.