Agenda item

The report will set out proposals, following consultation,  for the reorganisation of services into a new single frontline service to deliver the allocated budget savings. Report to follow

The Cabinet agreed on the 25th January to the amalgamation of Frontline Services with the elements of services provided by Safer Stronger Communities business unit into a new single Frontline Service. A further report setting out the details of the reorganisation was presented to this Committee on the 29th March at which members considered and agreed, in principle, the proposed Single Frontline Business Unit structure for consultation.  This further report set out the final proposals, following consultation, for the reorganisation of the services listed above into a new Single Frontline Service.  This restructure would deliver £3.6m in savings, a  proportion of these savings £1.4million(of  the total £3.6 million savings to be made) had been predicated on the disestablishment of the Neighbourhood Management Service which had previously been considered at General Purposes Committee meetings on the 15th February  and again following consultation , on the 10th March 2011.The proposed restructure within this report sought to deliver the remaining savings, a net reduction of 2.2m from the existing Frontline Services structure.    In the opening presentation, the Committee were asked to note that in Appendix C, containing the structure chart for Neighbourhood services, listed 2 health and safety food officers reporting to the regulatory services manager, one of these post’s role also included senior environmental officer duties. The Interim Director of Urban Environment continued to set out the minor changes made to service specific areas. These included changes to : grading of posts (some initial evaluations to be verified but would have no impact on ring fencing), postholder reporting lines, deletion of a  Contract management post and Contract Support Officer post in order to create two Contract development officer  posts, adding a senior revenue officer post to Parking services as was a priority to maintain income level from this service, funding through the deletion of 0.5 Concessionary Travel Officer post and one correspondence officer post . The Committee were asked to consider and agree the Single Frontline structure.

Understanding was sought on the requirement to have a team of four smarter travel officers. It was noted that these postholders were directly funded by Transport for London and did not incur a cost to the Council. This was the first year of a three year funding commitment.

The Committee commented on the number of correspondence officers employed in the parking team and sought an understanding of their roles and duties. It was reported that a high volume of parking correspondence was received by the service on a daily basis.  The Interim Director of Urban Environment advised that the number of staff employed to deal with correspondence in parking was low compared to similar teams in other boroughs.

RESOLVED

1. That the proposed new Single Frontline Structure as set out in the report be agreed.

2. That  the above decision takes into account  the outcome of the consultation with staff and trades unions as outlined in the appendices  of the report and gives due regard  to the Authority’s public sector duties including the consideration of the attached Equalities Impact Assessment.

3. That the timetable for implementation of the new Single Frontline Business Unit be noted.