Issue - meetings

Development and Regulatory Services: Recommendation for Preferred and Reserved Bidder and Full Business Case

Meeting: 11/06/2013 - Budget and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Item 6)

6 Development and Regulatory Services: Recommendation for Preferred and Reserved Bidder and Full Business Case pdf icon PDF 110 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee received public comments from Mr Julian Silverman, Mr John Dix and Mr Daniel Hope. 

 

The Director for Place, Pam Wharfe, and the Commercial Director, Craig Cooper, delivered a presentation which: outlined the national context; provided detail on the Development and Regulatory Services (DRS) project (including financial benefits, service benefits and standards, service improvement proposals and staff impacts); detailed commercial aspects (including contractual arrangements and the joint venture); and informed the Committee of the decision making timeline.  Copies of the presentation were circulated at the meeting and were made available with the agenda papers for the meeting on the council’s website.

 

A Member questioned what action would be taken to mitigate against residents with protected characteristics being able to access web based services.  The Leader of the Council advised the Committee that a comprehensive Equalities Impact Assessment (EIA) had been completed to support the proposed decision.  The Member expressed concern that there was no evidence in the EIA to specify what mitigating steps would be taken during the lifetime of the contract. Officers informed the Committee that there were service commitments to equalities in the contract, adding that move towards more web based services would free up resources for providing the DRS face to face service which was a contractual commitment.

 

The Committee questioned whether the proposals would impact users of the Hendon Cemetery and Crematorium services.  Officers reported that transferring this service to the joint venture would lead to investment in facilities and overall service improvements as the contractor had committed to achieving the gold standard for cemeteries, an improvement from the current bronze standard.

 

The Committee noted that Scheduled 37 of the proposed contract enabled the Council to veto certain schemes proposed by Capita Symonds.  Officers clarified that even though elected Members would have the ability to veto schemes which potentially generated profits for the joint venture, Capita Symonds had provided a guaranteed level of profit per annum.

 

Members highlighted that a number of statutory services were included in the DRS service bundle and questioned how the joint venture would respond to legislative changes which required a reconfiguration of services and what the cost implications would be.  Officers reported that for services in scope, the joint venture would provide these.  Any contractual changes would be subject to a best value review and the Council would have the ability review and challenge any proposed contractual variations arising as a result of new legislation.

 

A Member noted that the borough was expected to experience demographic increases and changes in local economic circumstances over the lifetime of the contract and questioned how tightly the council were bound by volumes of service.  Officers advised that the sensitivity analysis (page 41, Appendix 1) highlighted that there would not be a change in price until there was a 10% increase or decrease in service levels.  It was emphasised that the price changes would only impact on the sub-set of services detailed in the sensitivity analysis and that if prices were increased, that would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6