Agenda, decisions and draft minutes

Members are required to notify any substitutions by midday on the day of the meeting.

Late substitutions will not be accepted and Members attending as a substitute without having given the due notice will not be able to take part in the meeting.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Ralph Muncer, Tina Bhartwas, Laura Williams and Louise Peace.

Having given due notice, Councillor Claire Strong substituted for Councillor Muncer.

Audio recording – 1 minute 16 seconds

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Louise Peace, Tina Bhartwas, Ralph Muncer and Laura Williams.

Members are reminded that any declarations of interest in respect of any business set out in the agenda, should be declared as either a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest or Declarable Interest and are required to notify the Chair of the nature of any interest declared at the commencement of the relevant item on the agenda.  Members declaring a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest must withdraw from the meeting for the duration of the item. Members declaring a Declarable Interest, wishing to exercise a ‘Councillor Speaking Right’, must declare this at the same time as the interest, move to the public area before speaking to the item and then must leave the room before the debate and vote.

(1)   The Chair advised that, in accordance with Council Policy, the meeting would be recorded.

(2)   The Chair drew attention to the item on the agenda front pages regarding Declarations of Interest and reminded Members that, in line with the Code of Conduct, any Declarations of Interest needed to be declared immediately prior to the item in question.

(3)   The Chair advised that for the purposes of clarification clause 4.8.23(a) of the Constitution does not apply to this meeting.

Audio recording – 1 minute 45 seconds

(1)   The Chair advised that, in accordance with Council Policy, the meeting would be recorded.

(2)   The Chair drew attention to the item on the agenda front pages regarding Declarations of Interest and reminded Members that, in line with the Code of Conduct, any Declarations of Interest needed to be declared immediately prior to the item in question.

(3)   The Chair advised that for the purposes of clarification clause 4.8.23(a) of the Constitution does not apply to this meeting.

To receive petitions, comments and questions from the public.

There was no public participation at this meeting.

Audio recording: 2 minutes 25 seconds

There was no public participation at this meeting.

REPORT OF THE MANAGING DIRECTOR

To seek approval of the Council’s Productivity Plan, drafted in response to the Productivity in Local Government request, from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

RECOMMENDED TO CABINET:  That Cabinet delegates to the Leader of the Council and Managing Director authority to agree any amendments required to the Productivity Plan as a result of discussion at either Overview and Scrutiny Committee and/or Cabinet and authority to submit the Plan on behalf of the Council.

REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION: The recommendations are to ensure that the Council complies with the requirements set out by DLUHC to produce a Productivity Plan.

Audio Recording: 2 minutes 29 seconds

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Daniel Allen, presented the report entitled ‘Productivity Plan’ and advised that:

·     The Cabinet was required to approve the Productivity Plan, as requested by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), before returning the Plan.

·     The Plan had been published on the North Herts Council website.

The following Members asked questions:

·     Councillor Jon Clayden

·     Councillor Elizabeth Dennis

·     Councillor Donna Wright

·     Councillor Claire Strong

In response to questions, the Managing Director advised:

·     There were no defined ways to measure productivity as each Council measures itself differently. At the last meeting of the committee, new measures were discussed about the performance of the Council services and these would be used to measure productivity. Due to the Council work being qualitative rather than quantitative, this made this process difficult.

·     Many of the questions provided by DLUHC were not around productivity.

·     When the General Election was announced, the Local Government Association (LGA), the District Council Network (DCN) and DLUHC were all contacted to confirm if the plan was still required with a possible change of government, and it was confirmed that the Plan was still required.

·     It was also thought that a neat summary of information about what the Council has been working on and its achievements would not be such a bad idea for any incoming government to see.

·     White papers from the LGA, Cooperative Councils Network (CCN) and DCN all came out after the plan has been drafted, therefore content from those documents were not taken into account.

·     It was felt that most points in the white papers were already covered in the Plan, and those that were not covered, did not apply to this Council.

·     Further clarification and statistics could be added to the report where available, including the figures around the letting of office space. If Members had any further areas where statistics could be included, they should inform the Managing Director. This needed to be balanced with keeping the plan high level.

·     The plan highlighted areas, specifically within Green Spaces and the use of technology, where the Council had made improvements to productivity and further examples could be added if suggested by Members. The attempt was to highlight more recent improvements. 

·     Very little money had been spent by the Council on equality, diversity and inclusion training or consultants, however this was not included within the Plan due to the nature of the question posed.

Councillor Claire Winchester proposed recommendation 2.1 of the report and this was seconded by Councillor Tom Tyson.

The following members took part in debate:

·     Councillor Claire Strong

·     Councillor Elizabeth Dennis

·     Councillor Tom Tyson

·     Councillor Matt Barnes

Points raised during the debate included:

·     Some Members felt that Item 2.1 should be recommended to Cabinet. Officers had already carried out good work on the Productivity Plan and to add more workload was felt too much. Members felt to recommend the plan as it is now.

·     Others felt that the 2.2 option would be more  ...  view the full minutes text for item 22.

To consider passing the following resolution: That under Section 100A of the Local Government Act 1972, the Press and Public be excluded from the meeting on the grounds that the following report will involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the said Act (as amended) and Paragraph 5 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the said Act (as amended).

RESOLVED: That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the said Act (as amended).

Councillor Matt Barnes proposed and Councillor Tom Tyson seconded and, following a vote, it was:

RESOLVED: That under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the said Act (as amended).

REPORT OF: SHARED SERVICE MANAGER – WASTE MANAGEMENT

Cabinet agreed the service design for the new waste, recycling and street cleansing contract on 12 December 2023, along with new aims and principles of the Shared Service, based around delivering services which are both financially and environmentally sustainable.

Officers have completed a competitive dialogue procurement and are seeking a decision from Cabinet on the award of the contract to the preferred bidder.

In addition officers are seeking agreement to a number of recommendations which affect the service mobilisation and are required for the successful delivery of the new services in 2025.

RECOMMENDED TO CABINET: That the Part 2 report be noted.

REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION:

(1)   An extensive procurement exercise has been undertaken for waste, recycling and street cleansing services.

(2)   The procurement including specification development has been supported by external consultants Eunomia and legal advisors from Sharpe Pritchard.

N.B. As this item was considered in private session, no audio recording is available.

Councillor Matt Barnes proposed and Councillor Jon Clayden seconded and after a vote it was:

RECOMMENDED TO CABINET: That the Part 2 report be noted.

REPORT OF: SHARED SERVICE MANAGER – WASTE MANAGEMENT

Cabinet agreed the service design for the new waste, recycling and street cleansing contract on 12 December 2023, along with new aims and principles of the Shared Service, based around delivering services which are both financially and environmentally sustainable.

Officers have completed a competitive dialogue procurement and are seeking a decision from Cabinet on the award of the contract to the preferred bidder.

In addition officers are seeking agreement to a number of recommendations which affect the service mobilisation and are required for the successful delivery of the new services in 2025.

RECOMMENDED TO CABINET:

(1)   That Cabinet agrees to award the waste, recycling and street cleansing contract to the preferred bidder, as identified in Part 2 of this report.

(2)   That Cabinet agrees to the delegation of powers to the Director of Resources and the Director of Place in consultation with the Executive Members for Finance and IT and Recycling and Waste Management to determine whether the Council Capital funds vehicles.

(3)   That Cabinet agrees to approve the formation of a joint mobilisation project board to include the Executive Members responsible for Finance and IT as well as the Executive Member covering waste, recycling and street cleansing services for both EHC and North Herts to monitor the progress of the mobilisation of the waste, recycling and street cleansing contract.

(4)   That Cabinet has regard for the draft statutory guidance in Appendix 6 and taking into account the matters set out in this Part 2 report and any Part 2 clarifications, reconfirms the decision on the 3-weekly collection frequency of residual waste collections made by Cabinet as per 7.5 and provides clear reasons for the decision.

REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS:

(1)   An extensive procurement exercise has been undertaken for waste, recycling and street cleansing services.

(2)   The procurement including specification development has been supported by external consultants Eunomia and legal advisors from Sharpe Pritchard.

Councillor Amy Allen presented the report entitled ‘Waste, Recycling and Street Cleansing Contract Award Part 1’ and advised that:

·     The report sought consideration by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee of the work which had gone into preparing for the award of the contract.

·     North Herts Council were the lead authority in the partnership with East Herts Council, who considered a similar report at their meeting of Overview and Scrutiny yesterday. East Herts Council would be seeking similar recommendations to award the contract on 9 July.

·     Cabinet agreed the service design for the new contract on 12 December 2023.

·     The agreed aim and principles of the Shared Service were based around delivering services which were both financially and environmentally sustainable.

·     The contract had been built around collaborative working, encouraging bidders to work cross boundary with a shared service design for the greatest efficiencies.

·     Officers had completed an extensive procurement and will be seeking a decision from Cabinet to award the contract to the preferred bidder on behalf of both Councils.

·     Although the preferred bidder had been determined, the report also sought a delegation to the Chief Finance Officer on the decision to Capital fund vehicles. The preferred bidder would need to swiftly order vehicles once the necessary standstill period is complete, for them to be available when needed at the start of the contract.

·     The delegation was to prevent a delay in ordering vehicles and to make the most up to date assessment of the financial benefit to the council in relation to the options.

·     A new joint project board was proposed to oversee the start of the new contract, as this will require input from many corporate teams to ensure its success, in particular, digital transformation, communication and customer service and the start of the new services.

·     The report also contained information on the developing plans for mobilisation, which will ensure the successful implementation of services and for which the joint mobilisation project board will provide oversight, this includes a work programme and a draft communications plan.

·     Overview and Scrutiny should note that during the procurement exercise the Government released draft guidance to support their proposals for ‘Simpler Recycling’ linked to new legislation introduced by the Environment Act in response to the 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy. This guidance is yet to be officially published but the legislation required that Councils had due regard for any guidance.

·     An additional recommendation will be considered by Cabinet to reconfirm the collection of residual waste on a three-weekly basis, which was originally agreed in October 2022 and reconfirmed in the revised service design presented at Cabinet in December 2023.

The following Members asked questions:

·     Councillor Elizabeth Dennis

·     Councillor Tom Tyson

·     Councillor Martin Prescott

·     Councillor Donna Wright

·     Councillor Matt Barnes

·     Councillor Jon Clayden

·     Councillor Claire Strong

·     Councillor Claire Winchester

·     Councillor Daniel Wright-Mason

In response to the questions, the Service Manager – Waste advised that:

·     The recommended guidance on the 9-month timeline included procuring the fleet vehicles with any additional costs. It was noted that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25.