Will Brent Council Council's vital services to residents be improved by these proposals going to Cabinet on Monday?

 

A process with major repercussions for the future of basic services provided to residents and worth millions of pounds will be discussed at Brent Cabinet on Monday.

Brent Council synchronised the end dates of various Public Realm contracts so as to enable the Council to consider ways of Redefining Local Services (RSL). Of the contracts above the Veolia contract is the most costly.

Following an initial consultation over the provision of local servives the Council proposes to adopt a 'specialist contracts delivery model with low to moderate levels of insourcing [the council providing the service rather than external contractors].' 

This is a lower level of insourcing that some Labour councillors hoped for. Insourcing would involve TUPE from existing providers.

 The objectives of RSL are listed:

The Final RLS Delivery Model will aim to achieve the following overarching objectives: 

 
· A neighbourhood approach to managing local issues to meet the needs of local areas
· A borough-wide approach to managing our assets and infrastructure (e.g. highways, street lighting) to ensure investment is spent well
· A specialist contracts approach for outsourced services
· Improved contract management and monitoring for contracted services
· An intelligence-led approach to the deployment of resources
· Integrated deployment of environmental enforcement services across public realm
· Greater responsiveness to addressing issues and problems in the public realm
· Better digital customer interface with real-time information and issue reporting
· Additional council capacity for continuous service improvement and innovation
· Focusing specialist officers where they can add the greatest value, with more triaging between generalist and specialist roles
· Deliver improved Social Value outcomes via our Social and Ethical Procurement Policy, including: striving for carbon neutrality by 2030 and enhancing nature and biodiversity; the number of local jobs created (where appropriate for the contract), including focus on disadvantaged groups; and the number of SMEs and third sector organisations that benefit from the procurement exercises.

 The service benefits are set out:

The Final RLS Delivery Model offers the following service benefits:

· Ongoing funding for the highways reactive maintenance gang based at the Depot, tasked with 20% of reactive highways repairs which arise from customer reports, in order to provide a more flexible and responsive service than the current highways services contract. No additional cost as this has already been funded from within R & E budgets). 

· Insourcing the Education, Communication and Outreach (ECO) team (6 staff) would give the Council direct responsibility for communication, education and outreach to help address our considerable waste, climate emergency and circular economy objectives and challenges. 3 of these staff are already on LGPS with the additional cost of insourcing estimated at £52k per annum. 

· Insourcing the Head Park Warden and 4 Park Wardens would enable better integration of education and enforcement across the whole public realm in Brent. It would also enable a more strategic and holistic approach to stakeholder management and community engagement of park interest groups and park users and help to increase participation and volunteering in parks. All these staff are on existing LGPS via an Admission Agreement with the Council but there would be additional cost estimated at £26k per annum to cover Brent’s higher employers’ pension contribution (35% compared to Veolia’s 20%). 

· The Pre-Notice to Owner (NTO) Correspondence work-stream (informal parking appeals) could be incorporated back into the larger Parking back-office Notice Processing Team (formal parking appeals). The addition of these two individuals would be absorbed within the structure without any need to change either structure or management capacity. The additional cost of insourcing is estimated at £32k per annum. There has historically been discomfort that outsourcing this function results in a situation where the contractor is in effect "marking its own homework” as it is issuing the PCNs and then answering the challenges to those same PCNs. Moving this service back in house could provide: 

‒ Greater transparency on the activities of the contractor
‒ More control on how policy is applied to the cancellation of PCNs
‒ Improved quality of Pre-NTO correspondence
‒ Greater consistency between Pre and Post NTO communications with
customers
‒ Greater flexibility across the wider PCN correspondence team to deal with
surges in workload 

· In-sourcing the Tree Surveying function, tree database and the raising of
tree works orders would provide the Council with greater strategic and
financial control of the Arboriculture Services contract, improved planning
and completion of works and achieve better value for money from our tree
maintenance budget. This is estimated to cost an additional £30k per
annum, comprising £20k in staff costs and up to £10k in annual tree
database license costs. Staff time required to maintain the database would
be covered from existing resources, and/or as an element of the TUPE
transfer to the Council of the existing surveyor post. 

· Creating a stronger highways inspection regime - 1 additional highways
inspector post would significantly address the lack of resource for highways
inspections noted in section 4 of this report. Total cost £43k per annum.

 

Street cleaning, litter, fly-tipping, waste collection and recycling are one of the main concerns of residents so dealt with in my detail here.

One of the proposals is for an 'Integrated Street Cleaning and Waste Contract' that combines street cleansing and waste collection but separates waste collection from recycling. A discussion with potential providers was in favour of such a separation. The Cabinet paper outlines the main requirements:

Street Cleansing Services 

 
· Provide comprehensive, seven-day cleansing services that deliver high performance standards across all land use types and which maximise the amount of waste segregated for reuse, recycling, composting and recovery
· Provide a ‘Clear All’ service on designated roads ensuring the removal of all waste in these areas, regardless of the source material
· Provide and manage receptacles, including litter bins, ensuring that they never become full or overflowing
· Provide a fly tipping removal service which proactively reduced the amount of fly tipped waste and delivers the highest possible performance standards
· Provide a graffiti and fly posting removal service that meets EPA standards

 

 Waste and Recycling Collections 

 
· Provide a scheduled residual, recycled, food and garden waste collection service that maximises the amount of waste segregated for reuse, recycling and composting, while minimising contamination of target materials to improve the quality of the separately collected waste streams
· Provide an assisted collection service to meet the needs of those households who are unable to present household waste and recyclables at standard collection points
· Provide a special collections service for bulky household waste that maximises the amount of waste segregated for reuse, recycling and recovery

 

Winter Maintenance 

 
· Provide an effective winter service which ensures that safe passage along all main highways, priority routes and other relevant land use types is not endangered by ice and/or snow during the designated Winter Service Period
· Provide and manage all salt bins, ensuring that they are stocked and available for use during the designated Winter Service Period to reduce risk to residents

Other Services 

 
· Emergency and out of hours response
· Waste container management and delivery
· Customer care and satisfaction, including response to service requests and complaints.

The potential for further insourcing in the future is noted:

Under the Final RLS Delivery Model, there would be potential to insource further functions from the proposed Integrated Street Cleansing & Waste Contract during the main contract term, as detailed in paragraph 6.12 of this report, and to insource the full grounds maintenance service after the next contract ends in 2027/28, should the council’s finances improve. There was broad support for such further insourcing in the best value duty consultation response.The council would also retain an interest in considering insourcing the full street cleansing service at the end of the main contract term of the proposed Integrated Street Cleansing & Waste contract

The Timetable:

The full report can be found HERE

Waste, Pavements, Crime, Clean Air, Parks, Trees, Litter, Parking etc - have your say on future of Brent's vital services

 

Brent Council are consulting on the delivery of essential basic services from April 2023. As these affect us every day (you should see my email in-box!) it is worth making an effort to respond:

In May 2019, the council set up a programme called ‘Redefining Local Services’ to explore how some of the most important local services could be delivered from 1 April 2023. This is when existing contracts for many of these services are due to end. 

 

We’re talking about the delivery of services that have an impact on:

 

• How your recycling and waste is collected and processed
• How our roads and pavements are maintained
• How we work to prevent anti-social behaviour and crime
• How we improve local air quality and tackle the climate emergency
• How businesses like pubs and casinos are licensed
• How Brent’s parks and trees are maintained
• How we keep our streets free of litter and illegal rubbish dumps
• How illegal parking is enforced
  

 

A decision must now be made on how services that are currently being delivered by contractors will be delivered in the future, once those contracts end. For example, the council could continue to pay outside organisations to provide these services (outsourcing), or it could deliver some of them itself (insourcing), or the council could do a combination of both these things.

 

The documents we are consulting on summarise the research that has been done to date and outline the pros and cons of a number of different delivery model options for these services. 

 

Ultimately, our ambition is to design a model which delivers the services residents, businesses and visitors need. This means a cleaner, greener environment and more jobs for local people, as well as opportunities for local businesses. We also want to build in greater flexibility, control and innovation.  

 

Whichever option is chosen, the council must make sure that the way services are delivered is affordable and secures best value. 

 

We are now asking for your views on the future delivery of these local services. 

 

Why we are consulting

 

We are consulting with you to help us make informed decisions about the future delivery of these important services. We want to know what your priorities are when thinking about service delivery and how you feel we should choose between the different delivery model options. 

 

We also want to know which delivery models you prefer, your reasons for choosing them and whether you agree with the two competing options we are currently favouring. 

 

Who are we consulting with?

Under Section 3 of the Local Government Association 1999 (LGA 1999), the council has a duty to consult with representatives of the following groups of people:

• Local taxpayers (i.e. Brent residents)
• Local ratepayers (i.e. local businesses, including SMEs)
• Service users (i.e. people who use Brent services)
• People with an interest in the borough (this could include organisations who have contracts with the council)
• Local voluntary groups
  

 

When is the consultation and how can I respond?

The consultation will run from Tuesday 18 May 2021 until Monday 21 June 2021.

 

We ask that you please complete the online survey by Monday 21 June.

 

We also want to talk to a handful of people from across the borough in a bit more detail about these issues – if you’d like to get involved in one of those conversations do please let us know by registering. As a thank you for your time, we’re offering a £20 LDO (London Designer Outlet) voucher to all who attend.

 

Please note that individual replies on the consultation will not be provided. However, we will post a summary of all views received on the portal after the consultation has closed.

How will we use your data?

A report summarising all views received will be produced after the consultation period for consideration at a future meeting of Cabinet. This report will help inform Cabinet’s final decision on the delivery model for these services.

All feedback received through the consultation will be anonymised, and any identifiable information removed before the summary report is produced.

 

As part of the online survey, we also need you to confirm that you fall within one of the groups of people that we are consulting with. 

 

We will not use the information you provide for any other purpose other than that stated above, nor will we share it with other council departments / external bodies.

We will always process your information in accordance with the law. For more information on how we process, use and store your information, please refer to the Council’s Privacy Policy.

 

Further Information

 

If you have any queries on the consultation process, please email them directly to redefininglocalservices@brent.gov.uk 

For more detail on the services in scope and the delivery models being considered, please refer to the documents provided alongside the survey.

 

COMPLETE THE SURVEY VIA THIS LINK

£20.9m wiped off Brent's budget as younger children and environment lose out

From the report on the budget consultation

Brent Council is to implement a budget reduction of £20.9m out of the total of  £26.2m it recently consulted on. Finance Director, Conrad Hall, claimed that they had gone for the ‘least worse’ of the options in terms of service reduction. Cabinet will consider the proposals at its meeting on February 11^th.

Council Tax will be increased by 5.77% bring it to an annual £1,582.25 for Band D, £30.44 a week.

As with government budget reviews those responsible expect to fight for their departments. In Brent Council’s case Environment, lead member Cllr Krupesh Sheth, seems to have lost out.

ENVIRONMENT CUTS

The cuts most likely to be noticed by the public are ending litter picking in residential streets and  removing their litter bins, reducing parks maintenance to a ‘reactive’ service, dimming street lights, reducing the opening hours of the Recycling Depot and a review of staffing in the Regeneration and Environment department equal to £1.5m in 2019-20 and £450k in 2020-21.  This would remove 48 full time equivalent posts and would be accomplished by voluntary redundancies followed by compulsion if too few people come forward. The report does not make clear what the impact of this staffing reduction would be on services saying only: ‘This would be a ‘downsizing’ exercise that will make teams leaner and would require a remodelling of structures to mitigate the impact on service delivery.’

Officers admit that the proposals on litter would have a negative impact on ‘customer satisfaction’ and that reduced hours at the Recycling Depot  may lead to more dumping of waste.

The report on the outcome of consultation on the proposal notes:

The most popular theme was in relation to the local environment where over 20% of respondents stated refuse collection and clean streets were important to them.

EARLY YEARS HELP CUT

In Children and Young People services there is a proposal to cut Early Years help by two staff and to charge more for the service. The stated risks are:

·      Quality of local provision as measured by Ofsted declines. This is mitigated through ensuring charging is applied equitably and continues to fund high quality training for providers. The potential to join up Early Years services within the existing Setting and School Effectiveness and the Forward Planning, Performance and Partnership services is explored. 

 

·      Nurseries and childminders negative reaction to service changes. Mitigation in implementing the learning from recent Customer Services reconfiguration that provides a greater focus on a digital offer of support to childcare settings. 

·      Challenge to secure and maintain sufficient place provision to meet the 30 hour entitlement.

CHILDREN’S CENTRES CLOSURES

Even more worrying for people who believe that the previous Labour Government’s Children’s Centres were a success in terms of early intervention is the proposal to close Children’s Centres in 2020-21. At present there are 14 contracted out to Barnardos and 3 council run. The total will be reduced to 8 with just 2 council run left. They will be replaced by ‘Family Hubs’:

·      The aims and objectives of the Family Hubs will closely align with the agreed Outcome Based Reviews that considered children on the edge of care and involved in gang activity. The objectives will be closely aligned to key Public Health outcomes related to children and their families. 

This will leave a lot of families with young children out and the report recognises under ‘Key Risks and Mitigations’:

·      Disproportionate impact on most vulnerable families. The risk is mitigated by the creation of family hubs that will widen the age range of support available to families who require support and target the hubs in the areas of the borough that have the greatest level of need. 

·      Early intervention outcomes worsen for children. The risk is mitigated by ensuring the design of the new family hub model uses research findings to make best use of available resources and that these are broadened to cover school age children. This will allow greater reach of new targeted services into families than is currently possible with the existing model. 

·      Public reaction following service redesign. This will be mitigated by ensuring effective consultation and engagement with local communities and engaging them in the design and delivery process. 

·      Quality of work provided to families from the new model deteriorates due to lack of investment. This risk is mitigated by moving to a targeted model, focusing the available resource on those families who most require support

A risk worth taking with young lives when there is so much evidence that early intervention can stop problems occurring later in life? Look what tops the list of the themes (screen grab above) that emerged from the consultation!

Again an extract from consultation submissions make you wonder how much notice was taken:

Other popular choices included Children Centres and services around childcare and children. Over 10% of the respondents so far are in favour of keeping Children Centres. With reference to Children Centres one respondent stated:

‘Children Centres are very important to me and many others. It has been my link to gaining information and advice since my baby was born. I have made friends and shared experiences with other parents, I am a single mum and sometimes you feel so alone. The centre have been amazing I even did a course whilst my child was being looked after to understand how to introduce books to your child.’

Another respondent stated:

‘I believe Brent have some of the best Children’s Centres in the country, and the training and support we offer have a positive impact on the families in our Borough.’

COUNCIL'S ROUNDWOOD YOUTH PROVISION  DISCONTINUED

The proposal to stop council run youth provision at the Roundwood Centre is retained with alternative education provision being provided (it does not say who the provider would be) with the voluntary sector providing youth services as wrap-around. The council’s assessment is that the risk that central government may clawback the MyPlace funding used to build the Centre, if ongoing youth provision does not take place there, is mitigated by the fact that they have not taken action against similar schemes. 

END METROPOLITAN POLICE PATROL FUNDING

These are extra officers funded by the Council.There are two proposals one to reduce the number of officers from 12 to 6 from April 2020 and the other to stop funding altogether:

The 12 Met Patrol Plus officers known as the ‘Partnership Tasking Team’ (PTT) for year 17/18 have recorded over 4000 responses related to the Safer Brent Partnership priorities; namely, Anti-Social Behaviour, Gangs, Serious Violence, Domestic and Sexual Abuse, Child Sexual Exploitation, Offender Management and Hate Crime. Such responses have included various outcomes:

1900 disruptions, over 200 arrests, over 100 weapon sweeps and 200 PSPO/CPN/FPN warnings and fines being issues. As well as enforcement the PTT have also led positive Police engagement in our community, more than 120 times.

Risk and mitigation:

This service is over and above the existing borough Police provision. Borough Police have reduced numbers and focus the asset they do have on MOPAC priorities and more general targeted outcomes.

We will have reduced/zero Police asset to task/deploy and focus on our priorities based on the requests/needs of our residents.

STOP SMOKING SERVICE

The Council will decommission the ‘smoking cessation service’ from GPs and community pharmacies except for pregnant women and mental health service users. in 2017-18 1,143 smokers were supported to quit. Its on-line replacement has not performed well so far.

Key risks and mitigations:

Opposition from GPs due to potential increased consultations and prescription costs for nicotine replacement therapy. However quitters would still result in cost savings to the NHS.

Strong opposition from community pharmacies who would lose income (42 pharmacies received between £50 and £19,000 income from the service in 17/18)

Precedents have been set: Harrow and Havering have discontinued smoking cessation services, Ealing has recently consulted on plans to do so.

The Council would remain part of the London Smoking Cessation Transformation Programme which is testing on line, digital and telephone support. It should be noted the programme has produced very small numbers of quits to date but it has undoubted potential

CUSTOMER SERVICES CUTS

Brent Customer Services have already experienced considerable job cuts and changes in service and this will continue with a switch to mainly digital channels with a total cut over two years of £500k with 6 full time equivalents lost in 2019-20 and 5 more in 2020-21.

There is limited recognition of the danger of ‘digital exclusion of the vulnerable and the elderly:

Some customers unable to utilise digital offer –

·      Officers available to help with self-service 


·      Expansion of Community Hibs to support vulnerable residents 


·      Promotion of IT skills courses 


·      Appointments available for the most vulnerable 


·      Customers experience of self service is poor discouraging use of this

·       Continued improvement and promotion of the Council’s digital offer 


·      Feedback on current self service facilities is used to improve this 


·      Residents are involved in the design and testing of new self service facilities 


These are the headline items but there are is plenty more in the budget papers. I will cover proposals re Council Tax Support separately.  The proposal to cut library hours or close one altogether has been dropped along with the potential closure of all Children’s Centres. Reduction is adult social carers visit times has been dropped but there are proposals to reduce payment to providers which could result in some withdrawing or low wages being reduced further.

The full list of proposals is HERE

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Bleak future for Brent Council finances and our services

The Scrutiny Committee on July 11th will be discussing this presentation on Brent Council's financial position and future prospects.Further cuts in services and increases in charges can be anticipated as well as a Council Tax rise.

Brent Council's Financial Position Briefing Note

Further to my coverage LINK LINK on the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) freeze and the associated Efficiency Plan, this is the briefing note sent to Labour councillors and opposition leads by the Labour leadership. You will see that the 'minimal controversy' position is based on a 4% Council Tax rise in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

Briefing note

Summary financial position

August 2016

1.     Brent council is in a good financial position.  Compared to previous years, the decisions required to balance the budget for the next two years may be less difficult than previously.  New savings of £16.4m over 2017/18 and 2018/19 are required.  It is recommended that all of the proposals required to achieve this are agreed at the February 2017 budget meeting.

2.     Council tax can now be increased by up to 4% each year.  The previous financial incentives to freeze council tax have been withdrawn.  Each 1% increase in council tax yields an extra £1m in income so approximately half of the savings target could be met through council tax rises. 

3.     Officers propose to publish draft budget proposals in October.  It is anticipated that proposals more than sufficient to balance the budget could be published, provided that council tax increases of 4% in 2017/18 and 2018/19 were to be agreed.  This would enable meaningful choices to be made through the ensuing consultation process.  Most, though not all, of these proposals would reflect efficiencies in service delivery, minimising the amount of controversial proposals.  If council tax increases were not to be agreed then more challenging decisions about services would have to be confronted.

4.     It will be necessary to look at charges for services as part of the civic enterprise strategy and the planned work on parking policy and therefore potentially charging must also be considered.  Officers are not suggesting that the entire budget for 2017/18 and 2018/19 can be balanced with council tax rises and no other contentious decisions about services.  However, the quantity and scale of such decisions could be minimised.

5.     To achieve this the council must ensure that there are no structural overspends in its current budget.  Significant service pressures will need to be managed down by the end of the financial year if this budget strategy is to be delivered.  Significant savings for 2017/18 and 2018/19, agreed as part of the budget set in February 2016, will also need to be delivered.  Some, such as from procurement (£8m) and civic enterprise (£2.5m), may be managerially challenging, as we have not targeted savings of this scale in this way before.

6.     More widely, the Chancellor has indicated that economic policy will be “reset” in the autumn statement.  It is not clear what the implications of this may be for local government, or the wider economy, and updates will be provided as more information becomes available.

7.     Business rates devolution, we presume, will go ahead as planned.  DCLG is currently consulting on some of the details of this so it is not possible to provide a comprehensive update.  However, it is important to stress that the national tax take from business rates is already greater than the DCLG settlement payments to local government.  This gap will get larger by 2020 as local government grants fall.

8.     Business rates devolution will mean that local authorities receive more income than they do now.  Whitehall will therefore devolve more services to local government and require us to pay for them.  This could be cost neutral, with the cost of the services devolved being equal to the extra income received.  However, in practice this may lead to cost pressures.

9.     The choice of which services are devolved is critical.  Local government would want these to be those that could be integrated effectively with existing services, leading to improved outcomes and financial efficiencies.  This devolution could also be different in different parts of the country, especially as the business rates take in London is disproportionately high.

10.  Further updates will be brought as the position becomes clearer.