Agenda and minutes

An apology for absence was received from Councillor Allen.

No declarations of interest were made.

The minutes of the meeting held on 9 November 2010 were approved as an accurate record.

There were no requests for call-in to consider.

The report provided an update on the Lot 3 procurement for operational services which affected Peterborough City Services.

Since the last update to the Committee in June 2010, Amey LG Limited, Enterprise Managed Services Limited, HW Martin Waste Limited and Veolia ES UK Limited had been invited to submit detailed solutions.  HW Martin Waste Limited subsequently withdrew from the procurement for its own commercial reasons.  From the detailed stage, Amey LG Limited and Enterprise Managed Services Limited were then shortlisted as the two final bidders for the final tender stage.  Having evaluated the final tenders in line with the evaluation methodology, both final bidders submitted credible bids.  However, the outcome of the evaluation revealed that Enterprise Managed Services Limited provided the final tender that was most advantageous to the Council in terms of operation and economy.

Final bidders were required to submit their final tenders on the basis of a 9 year and 23 year period and in the case of 23 years to demonstrate the benefits to the Council as opposed to a 9 year term.  Having demonstrated the benefits of a 23 year term, this was determined as the optimum period for the partnership and there would be break opportunities included in the Operational Services Agreement at years 9 and 16.

The services within Lot 3 consisted of a broad range and the following were the services to be included at the commencement of the partnership:-

-         refuse and recycling collection;

-         street cleansing;

-         parks, trees and open spaces (including some ground maintenance functions at cemeteries and the crematorium);

-         property design and maintenance;

-         building cleaning;

-         passenger and home to school transport;

-         corporate and schools catering;

-         travellers’ site management; and

-         courier services.

As part of the governance arrangements for the partnership, a Strategic Partnership Board would be established which would have overarching responsibility for the partnership.  This Board would meet at least quarterly to give high level strategic direction on the Partnership.  The Strategic Partnership Board would consist of senior representatives from the Council and the Lot 3 partner.  The following were considered to be the appropriate representatives for the Council’s purposes:-

-            Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Culture, Recreation and Strategic Commissioning (as the portfolio holder) who would Chair the Board meetings at least for the first year;

-            Cabinet Member for Resources;

-            Executive Director of Strategic Resources.

Enterprise had put forward the following as its senior representatives to sit on the Strategic Partnership Board:-

-            Martin Joyce, Managing Director – Local Government;

-      David Martin, Strategic Business Development Director;

-      Mike Heath, Partnership Director (designate)

The partnership was due to commence on 4 March 2011 with full service commencement as of 7 March 2011. 

The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) applied to those employees in PCS who were currently engaged on the services that were to be transferred to the Lot 3 partner.  In view of the timescales for the Partnership commencement, the formal  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The report presented the draft Affordable Housing Capital Funding Policy for scrutiny prior to being considered by the Cabinet.

The Policy set out the rules and procedures which PCC would adopt when it awarded grants to enable the continued supply of affordable housing in Peterborough by Registered Providers (RPs) (previously known as Registered Social Landlords (RSLs)). The funds were made available, mostly, from PCC’s accumulated right-to-buy capital receipts and were intended to supplement other sources of funding, such as from the Homes and Communities Agency.  Funds from right-to-buy capital receipts had amounted to over £10m since 2004.

The key issues addressed by the policy were:

·         the processes and protocols for bidding and allocating grant funding to RSLs

·         the criteria we would adopt to determine applications for funding

·         who was responsible for what in signing off bids (including delegated authority to Directors / use of CMDNs)

·         model ‘terms and conditions’ for any successful grant awards

A 10 day consultation period on the draft policy had taken place with Registered Provider (RP) partners in January 2011 and the outcome of that consultation has helped shape the policy document. 

A couple of changes had been made to the document including a new section around the need for bids of exceptional quality to be considered during the period of development of the Housing Strategy and some changes around the terms and conditions of grant.

Questions and observation were raised around the following areas:

• Should the eligibility for the grants be made clearer to state that it is only for accrediated RSLs as this was a recognised group and would prevent less desirable landlords accessing the funds?  Only registered providers who were on the Homes and Communities (HCA) list were eligible.  Officers would expand the paragraph to include refrence to the HCA.
• Officers had talked about two policies, was the current policy not sound?  There was already a Housing Strategy in place whilst developing this Policy.  We would need to ensure that the decisions made met the needs of both Strategies.
• Were there any plans in place to replace the funding when right-to-buy ended?  S106 funding would be available but the preference for that was to provide housing on site.  Affordable Housing funding from the HCA had reduced and we believed would be allocated differently.  There was nothing directly to replace right-to-buy.
• Were right-to-buy receipts declining?   We received the first £3m each year and in the remaining years would get another £3m in total.
• How did S106 work?  There could be a monetary contribution for off site provision and the S106 would state how many units were required to be developed on site.
• What proportion of applications had provision provided off site?  In the past few years the majority of provision was on site with one or two maximum off site.  The Local Plan did allow for off site provision for example if there was already an abundance of affordable housing in an area.
• Why did it have to be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The report provided an update on staffing and workforce matters and covered the following areas:

• Performance and Development Review (replacement of APD)
• Leadership Development Programme (Vision 2010)
• Investors in People  - Corporate Recognition
• Human Resources Review
• Job Evaluation – Stage 2 Appeals
• Employee Relations
• HR Team Service Delivery
• People Report – key workforce statistics as at December 2010
• HR Benchmarker Results

Questions and observations were raised around the following areas:

• The sickness within Children’s Services appeared to be worsening.  Were there any particular reasons?
• What was the Council’s level of sickness compared to the private sector?

The Scrutiny Manager would forward these questions to the Interim Head of Human Resources for a response.

The latest version of the Forward Plan, showing details of the key decisions that the Leader of the Council believed the Cabinet or individual Cabinet Members would be making over the next four months, was received.

Questions and observations were raised around the following areas:

• The Committee would like to see the Peterborough Local Investment Plan at its next meeting.
• Councillor Arculus raised concerns about the proposed decision around Vawser Lodge.  This had been on the Forward Plan for a number of months and kept being slipped back.

ACTION AGREED

To note the latest version of the Forward Plan.

We considered the Work Programme for 2010/11.

It was agreed that an extraordinary meeting of the Committee would be held to consider the review of consultants.

ACTION AGREED

(i)                  To confirm the work programme for 2010/11.

(ii)                That an extraordinary meeting of the Committee would be held on Wednesday 23 March 2011 at 7pm

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Following agreement by the Committee the next meeting would now be held on Wednesday 16 March 2011.