Agenda item

To note a verbal update.

Councillors Morton and Woodward (members of the Task and Finish Group (TFG)) gave a verbal update which included the following comments:

·         The TFG had not met since the previous Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting, however conversations had been had with Gary Stevenson (Head of Housing, Health and Environment) about what input the TFG could have as the pre-tender process came to a close.

·         The TFG was keen to ensure the lessons of the waste management contract were applied for the contract for the parks and gardens maintenance.

Discussion included the following comments:

·         The Portfolio Holder had confirmed that the input of the TGF so far had influenced the process to be taken forward in the final stages of preparing the contract procurement. The key messages of ensuring consultation with stakeholders had been taken in to account.

·         If the Committee was inclined to close the TFG, work on procuring the contract in cooperation with the relevant friends groups would continue under the guise of the Cabinet.

·         There was a lack of volunteers to sit on the TFG and the group had run its course.

·         Many of the town’s parks were award winning and there was no major concern for continued success, the borough’s contract managers had tackled problems in specific parks and replaced some of the wardens where necessary.

·         The biggest issue with large contracts, such as parks and gardens maintenance, was sufficient resources to manage the contractors. Contract managers were confident that there were sufficient resources, but the continuation of some problems indicated there was still more to be done.

·         Connected to the discussion earlier in the meeting, to deliver a quality service you needed people to do the work. This was increasingly difficult as budgets were constrained.

·         There was concern that the lessons relating to the procurement process were not being learnt; problems with Urbaser where known two years before they were awarded the contract in Tunbridge Wells. There was too great a reliance on outsourcing and a general lack of resources to procure and manage contracts.

·         The Committee was unable to scrutinise procurement properly due to a lack of understanding of the indices against which contracts were measured.

·         Contracts contained various industry-standard clauses around management and penalties. There was often little opportunity to vary these terms whilst maintaining a viable contract for the contractor.

·         Any contract which relied on penalties for enforcement must be balanced by reward for over-performance, the Council was unlikely to be able to offer the reward to make the potential penalties worth the risk for the contractor.

·         Following the change of membership of the Committee since the TFG was established, the experience and knowledge of the members on the subject had been lost.

·         Members of the committee were not expected to be experts on procurement or ground maintenance but were a common-sense check on whatever the topic of the day was.

·         Time had run out before the Cabinet needed to commence the procurement process, there was little more the TFG could do.

·         The officers responsible for the contract procurement could be invited to the Committee ahead of the Cabinet meeting which would give members an opportunity to contribute and scrutinise the recommendation to the decision makers without getting into the details of the procurement process at this stage.

RESOLVED –

1.    That the Parks and Gardens Maintenance Contract Task and Finish Group be closed; and

2.    That the officers responsible for the Parks and Gardens Maintenance Contract be invited to present their recommendations to the next meeting.