Meeting documents

Members will receive a status update from the Cabinet Member for Transportation and the Service Director of the Place service on the various internal and external reviews taking being undertaken. This status update is in advance of the full select committee monitoring session of all elements of the TfB review (including progress towards to the ETL inquiry recommendations) which will take place at 02 September committee.

Ruth Vigor-Hedderly, Cabinet Member for Transportation

Gill Harding, Service Director, Place

The Chairman welcomed Ruth Vigor-Hedderly, Cabinet Member for Transportation, Mark Shaw, Deputy Cabinet Member for Transportation and Gill Harding, Service Director, Place, to the meeting.

The Cabinet Member for Transportation gave the following overview of the current reviews subsequent to the provision of a fuller update at the September meeting of the ETL Committee:

The opportunity to update Members of the Committee on the current position of the reviews is welcomed. On the 1 April 2014 I was elevated from Deputy Cabinet Member for Transportation to Cabinet Member for Transportation.  Following this appointment I made the decision to commission an independent consultant – Gate One.  Gate One submitted CV’s to appoint an individual to work with Bucks County Council and Ringway Jacobs to carry out a discovery phase of the review.

Bart Smith was appointed to carry out the interviews and the work programme.  He has a wealth of experience in civil engineering and Local Authority working. This piece of work took three weeks during which there was a very intensive amount of interviews with local people, Local Area Technicians (LATs) and Strategic Directors etc. Following the discovery phase, a presentation took place at Green Park which during which the following three options were advised;

·         To carry on as we were

·         To look at going out to the market again and restarting the whole process

·         To work with the current contractor Ringway Jacobs

The decision was made to continue to work with Ringway Jacobs.  This decision was not made lightly; it was made because of the determination and the encouragement Ringway Jacobs showed the Local Authority that they wanted to make the contract work. Both the client and the contractor recognised the failings and that the contract didn’t work as well as it could have.

When the contract was first written and produced in 2009 it was very unique in terms of only a few Local Authorities, if any, having this type of contract in place. Over the period of 2009-2014 much has changed in legislation and also within Transport for Buckinghamshire.

Work includes looking at developing new governance, new policies and procedures and Bucks County Council becoming the intelligent client.  A small forensic analysis will take place of the Value for Money report which was commissioned in January 2014. A workshop with all stakeholders is taking place next week during which future plans will be discussed.

The structure of how Ringway Jacobs operates across the County Council has been looked into. The service has now been broken down into depots.  Amersham is a newly created depot.  The LATs previously based at Handy Cross who cover Amersham and Chiltern areas are now located at the Amersham depot.  Each depot has its own supervisor and manager and has been tasked with looking at how they can become effective and efficient, how savings can be made and how money can be brought back into the service i.e. the set-up of traffic management - 70 plus traffic operations were due to go ahead.  This has now been reduced to 14-15 operations.  Each closure costs a significant amount of money.

A ditching programme has been started and is working well.  £1 million has been invested to take the flooding off of the highway and to help address erosion. The amount of potholes and the categorisation has been looked into. Areas of the county are being looked at holistically. Handy Cross serves Wycombe and the surrounding areas; Griffin Lane will serve Aylesbury and small amount of the surrounding area; Gawcott will have two 2 dedicated LATs at all times.

An open day is taking place at the Amersham depot.  Members of the County Council, Town Councillors and Parish Councillors from Chiltern and District have been invited to attend. Each depot has a hub and live screen which shows each areas and the programme of work in place in a specific ward.

Members asked the following questions;

Is it possible to have an update on the responses to the Environment Select Committee recommendations agreed in principle by Cabinet in terms of the Intelligent Client approach and have some appointments been made to bolster the client team? The Value for Money exercise was due to be commissioned in January 2014.  A summary of the report should be available in the next few weeks. In terms of the Intelligent Client Approach, Mike Freestone has been appointed for an interim period. A structure of where we would like to recruit has been developed.  No appointments have been made as yet.

Who is involved in the Stakeholder workshop? The stakeholders are the Cabinet Member for Transportation, Mike Freestone, Ringway Jacobs, Eurovia, and the Strategic Director, Communities and Built Environment.

Why is Mr Freestone not at the meeting today? Mr Freestone has been appointed to take a strategic overview.  He was not invited to attend the meeting today.

There have been discussions about devolved services which is important as a policy initiative.  Devolved services have proven to be exceptionally well received in areas of Stewkley and Amersham Town Council and should be encouraged.

There have been a number of reports on TfB over the years.  How can the Committee be reassured that this report is not just another tick box exercise. The Committee can be assured that the Local Authority will not operate this way next year and this is not another tick box exercise.

Will the review look at the operational part of the contract as one of the issues raised is that the way the original contract was drawn up in 2009 is probably not fit for purpose in 2014? There seems to be an enormous amount of bureaucracy on the ground in terms of being unable to repair adjoining parts of a road because there is not written instruction/approval to do so. This is not acceptable. This is one of the mind-set ways of working that the Local Authority wishes to move away from. It is important to empower the operative and for them to think outside the box.  Ringway Jacobs have been tasked with changing the mind-set within their workforce. Any issues should be reported back to me to be looked into. The operational part of the contract has been discussed with Gate One lawyers.  The contract was found to be sound in structure but lacking in the intelligent client on behalf of BCC which needs to be strengthened.

Would you say that BCC as a client failed to manage the contract? There is a 50/50 split on the failure to manage the contract.

A lot of County Council policies are very aspirational in terms of they do not include target areas.  The policies need to be more exacting as well as practical and operational. The current policies are being looked into as part of the review.  This includes the possibility of building in targets when the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are set. This particular area of the portfolio is exceptionally commercial. When work takes place with a private contractor there needs to be a commercial mind-set and skill-set to drive forward new ways and ideas and to demonstrate savings to residents.

Now that the opportunity of some savings has been identified within the contract, will the budget be spent on grass cutting? It has previously been brought to the attention of the Committee that the District Council used to be paid five times has much as the County Council are currently paying for the contract. Grass cutting is exceptionally feral this year in so far as the amount of rain and sunshine we have had.  It is not possible to commit that any savings made will go towards grass cuttings because there are many other areas that need an injection of funding.  There is the awareness that 55/56% of County Council asset is unclassified roads which in some cases are in shocking condition.  Priority for any savings made would be given to the most needed areas. The latest mapping information for grass cutting is dated 2009. Ringway Jacobs has been tasked to update the mapping and to engage with Housing Associations, District Councils etc to clarify areas of responsibility.

The Environment Select Committee conducted a mini inquiry into grass cutting last year.  There is concern that in some parishes there does not seem to be evidence of lessons being learnt and being applied this year.

The first grass cut was very late.  It was at the end of the first cut session and three weeks late in its own right.  The quality of the second cut is not good. The number of grass cuts in rural areas has been reduced from three to two per year.  The reason for the lateness of the cuts is believed to be due to some of the verges being very wet or flooded and in some circumstances it has been difficult to get vehicles/maintenance to some areas.

With only two cuts per year in rural areas and six in urban areas, an even balance has to be found. The front of the grass cutters have also been replaced by flails which gives an even cut.

Issues to be dealt with in the September meeting include has the quality of the services started to improve, has the trust been rebuilt and with regard to a reduction in the number of services, the services being brought should not impact on the quality. The Cabinet Member gave thanks for the support received through a difficult time.  A further update will be given at the September meeting of the ETL Committee which will include evidence of new ways of working and of the intelligent client being in place.

A formal response to the recommendations made by the ETL Select Committee which were approved by Cabinet and an organisational chart of the client structure and roles is to be circulated to the Committee before the September meeting.

Action: Cabinet Member for Transportation