Agenda item

Purpose: To outline the response of West Berkshire Council and Bracknell Forest Borough Council, to the paper presented by the Chief Executive of Wokingham Borough Council recommending that all functions currently governed through the Joint Public Protection Committee and delivered by the Public Protection Partnership (PPP) would be brought back in-house to Wokingham and to provide an overview of options available to the West Berkshire and Bracknell Forest Councils to ensure any operational and financial risks are appropriately managed.

The Committee considered the report (Agenda item 8).  The report was presented by Paul Anstey, Head of Public Protection and Culture, and outlined the response of West Berkshire Council and Bracknell Forest Council to the paper presented by the Chief Executive of Wokingham Borough Council recommending that all functions currently governed through the Joint Public Protection Committee (JPPC) and delivered by the Public Protection Partnership (PPP) would be brought back in-house to Wokingham.

The report set out the work that needed to be done and provided some context and scale as to the financial implications.  Mr Anstey said the three Councils were working in partnership to make this a positive experience though it was inevitable there would be discussions in the future where there might be slight differences of opinion.  There were risks associated within the process and the timescales for this were important to adhere to in order to cause minimum disruption to all parties and hopefully minimise all risks that had been identified as a result of the decision. The outcome of the process would be to define the terms of how Wokingham wanted to operate their service and to make sure West Berkshire and Bracknell were clear in their position about how they wished the Partnership to move forward beyond the time at which Wokingham exited.

The report aimed to clarify that communications and relationships in managing the process were strong and clear and that communication to the staff was going to be imperative to the success of the service in the longer term.  Mr Anstey said that further papers would be circulated in relation to project planning, the staff involved in the project and also to make sure that the project managed and mitigated any of the ‘business as usual’ risks in due course. 

Councillor John Harrison commented that from the perspective of Bracknell Forest Council the decision was not unexpected and that Bracknell had full confidence in the staff of the PPP and in the common sense of having the Partnership structure.  Councillor Harrison added that it was unfortunate staff would have to go through a period of uncertainty but common sense and goodwill on all sides would lead to a resolution of any issues.

Councillor Hilary Cole said West Berkshire were disappointed that Wokingham were leaving the Partnership but understood the reasons why and agreed the need to work together to make the transition as smooth as possible for all three Councils and believed the six month transition period was sufficient to enable this to happen.

Councillor James Cole noted there was a lack of detail in Wokingham’s budget of £500K in terms of actual cost and asked whether that figure was likely to be adequate.  Mr Anstey said the process as mapped out in the agreement, was to establish what were termed as direct losses and the management of the costs from staffing levels, equipment and accommodation through to any organisational change in project support and  sought to identify costs that could be reduced or mitigated now to prevent future or increased losses further down the line.  In addition there was a need to identify if there were sensible ways of manoeuvring in terms of organisational change as staffing was a fairly significant cost in the overall balance of the budget for PPP.  Flexibility was needed as to where there were staff that could be reasonably redeployed across the three authorities based on the requirements that Wokingham put forward in terms of what kind of service they choose to offer in the future.  Mr Anstey said the report gave an indicative cost based on similar projects.  The working assumption was that the project could proceed in the six month period but as has been demonstrated in other complex projects sometimes the timeframe was exceeded which might influence costs.

Councillor John Porter also felt it was a shame Wokingham had decided to leave the PPP and added that Bracknell Forest believed in the PPP which provided a great efficiency to all residents and businesses and remained fully behind the Partnership and looked forward to continued working with West Berkshire to maintain that great service.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.