Agenda item
Environment and Neighbourhood Services budget issues
The Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services will attend the meeting to provide a presentation for Members on current budget issues facing this service.
Minutes:
Sue Harper (Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services) outlined the structure of the department by reference to a Powerpoint presentation. She pointed out that the Streetcare section no longer existed and the department was now split into two large areas - the Environment and Protection Services division and the Neighbourhood Services division. Continuing with the Powerpoint presentation, Bharat Jashapara (Assistant Director, Strategic Finance) outlined the departmental budget. He pointed out that the Neighbourhood Services element of the budget included the funding received from Transport for London and that overall the departmental budget was greatly reduced from the previous year. The 2011/12 budget for the department included a large level of income, a significant part of which was from parking charges.
In response to a question about the impact of the delay in implementing the library transformation programme, Sue Harper explained that there had been slippage in achieving the part year savings this year of £408,000 due to the libraries not closing until October and this would have to be made up with savings in other areas. She stated that there was still uncertainty on the outcome of the legal challenge and if the programme could not be fully implemented then alternative savings would have to be identified.
Members asked if the department faced any further changes. Michael Read (Assistant Director for Environment and Protection) stated that further organisational change was not planned but a number of areas of operation would be subject to review. The parking contract had been added to the One Council programme. The need to retender the contract offered opportunities to work with other boroughs in seeking to improve performance and make savings. Jenny Isaac (Assistant Director for Neighbourhood Services) added that the highways contract ended in 2012 and this presented the opportunity to look at joint procurement options that would build on performance under the current contract and modernise approaches to delivery of the contract. Sue Harper stated that the opportunity was also being taken to look at how the garden and trade waste services could be improved, to take part in a review of the grounds maintenance contract and in reviewing the youth service and provision of services for the youth. In being asked what savings target the department was working towards, Sue Harper replied that no overall target had been set and it was too early to say what savings each of the individual projects would achieve.
Members asked about the current position regarding negotiations with Veolia on the waste and street cleaning contract. Sue Harper replied that a number of meetings had been held and that agreement had been reached on the remaining two years of the contract. It had not been possible to achieve the targeted full year savings on the contract this year and this shortfall had to be covered by the department. A final meeting with Veolia was scheduled to discuss a possible two year extension to the contract. Michael Read outlined the changes to street sweeping that had been introduced which, although could not avoid being seen as a reduction in provision, were delivering a good service.
Reference was made to the current Forward Plan which showed a number of Environment and Neighbourhood Services items earmarked for submission to the Executive. In response, Michael Read explained that it was hoped to achieve around £75,000 saving on the arboricultural contract. The report on miscellaneous fees and charges was outside the usual fees and charges report and picked up a few areas where it was felt the Council was not in tune with arrangements in other boroughs. The report on the parking contract would cover what had already been reported to the committee and it was hoped that significant savings would be made on this. Jenny Isaacs addressed the report on library stock by explaining that she was confident that a good contract rate would be achieved and that because there were no savings being sought from this contract this would result in the Council being able to maintain the existing book budget even with six libraries closing. This would allow a greatly enhanced offer being available from each of the remaining six libraries.
Reference was made to the increased target for income from parking charges and penalty charge notices (PCNs). It was said that complaints about the issue of PCNs was on the rise and reference was made to road junctions within the borough where it was claimed that drivers were being forced into either risking a charge or delaying the movement of traffic because of poor road layout or markings. Michael Read explained that all junctions at which camaras had been placed had been checked and in some cases re-marked to ensure they were workable but that if any councillor felt a junction needed to be looked at they should raise it with him. He added that Brent currently had the lowest success rate of appeals against PCNs in London which showed a good quality level in the issue of PCNs.
Questions were asked about the waste and street sweeping service. Some members expressed the view that the street sweeping service needed to improve and better co-ordinated with the waste collection service. Michael Read replied that efforts were made to co-ordinate the two services but this was by no means possible in all cases. He informed members that £465,000 had been saved by sweeping those residential streets that used to get a three times a week service down to twice a week and £360,000 saved from those that used to get a twice weekly service down to once a week. He undertook to provide all councillors with a summary of the changes. Whilst accepting it was a lower level of service and in light of the Council having to make large scale savings, he felt the contract continued to provide a generally good service.
The Chair thanked Sue Harper, Michael Read, Jenny Isaac and Bharat Jashapara for attending the meeting.
Supporting documents: