Agenda item

The committee to consider proposals for the restructure of  Recreation Services following consultation. Report to follow

The Committee considered proposals for the reshaping of Recreation services.  These proposals were intended to tackle base budget pressure, support service externalisation and contribute to achieving an agreed budget saving of 2.7m over the next 3 years. They would result in the reduction of 50 posts in the service this would leave a majority of staff (145.3FTE) in Operational services, 13 FTE in Client service and 12FTE in Commissioning services. The Assistant Director of Recreation Services explained that he was seeking to keep the number of staff displaced and subject to compulsory redundancy to a minimum. Currently there were 14 posts in this situation but efforts were being made to enable them to take voluntary redundancy/recruitment to remaining vacancies.   Paragraph 11 was refereed to which set out the consultation methods used and the key changes made to the proposals following the consultation process. 

It was highlighted to the Committee that the significant changes to the structure of Recreation Services were the reductions to the Parks area due to decease in funding. The staffing structure for the Parks service going forward was illustrated with the following changes highlighted.

• There would be two operational areas each with a Manager, Assistant Manager and 4 Team Leaders. Each of these operational areas would have 3 generic Operational Zones/Teams , with a Team Leader, senior operative and 4 Operatives (36 staff in total) .Furthermore each operational area would lead a taskforce team , with a borough wide remit, and a Team Leader with 6 operational operatives. These teams would cover hygiene; gate locking, gang mowing, tree works and machinery, play and general maintenance.

• It was noted that the teams would operate out of 6 depots and use 5 sub depots. There would be four depots shared with Veolia, whilst a further 4 would exclusively used by Veolia.

Following consultation with staff, there were changes made as further staff had come forward with voluntary redundancy requests.  These included: a management selection process being chosen instead of an interview selection process for Parks operational staff, use of slotting in as opposed to closed ring fences used where there was found to be no net reduction in staff and depot, the selection of the Broadwater Farm Community Development Officer post  was  to be appointed through a closed ring fence instead of an open ring fence and 2 vacant  apprentice gardener posts had been deleted. The Committee noted that  the service were  examining alternative employment opportunities for 3  female black and ethnic minority staff  working at the catering section of Tottenham Green Centre who were identified in the Equalities Impact Assessment was facing an unequal impact as a result of the restructure.

Following this information the Committee were asked to consider the recommendations at paragraph 3 and agree them.

The Committee expressed concerns at the reductions in Park staff and in particular pointed to one of the overriding aims of the Council which was to protect frontline services and questioned whether this was being adhered to given the level of reductions in the Parks service. There was further concern about the recent cleanliness of Parks which some members of the Committee felt had deteriorated in recent months. They asked whether there were alternative ideas on new ways of working instead of the reductions in staff. In response it was noted that the Cabinet paper, as the policy document leading the staff change, had contained the information on the creative ideas on how the service would work differently as a result of a reduced funding package. It was important to note that plans for taking the service forward, following restructure, were at an early stage but would be progressed. There were a number of ideas and proposals to consider in particular on how the hygiene in parks would operate.

Reference was made to the earlier discussion on spans of control in which a manager was expected to manage around 5-8 staff. This was not followed in this restructure as the Assistant Manager was assigned to lead 4 Team Leaders and therefore clarification was sought on the duties of this role. In response it was noted that the Assistant Manager was expected to manage maintenance across the parks, liaise with Homes for Haringey and manage their sites & property areas and have responsibility for park events. The team managers were expected to be mobile and not site based to enable them to detect maintenance and hygiene issues .In response to the point on the sharing of facilities with Veolia and the impact this would have, it was noted that this was an overlap negotiated in the waste management contract. Following the reduction of the Parks service it was not financially viable to have these depots for the exclusive use of the Parks team. The Parks service would still use 6 depots and 5 sub depots. They would share use with Veolia with 4 of these. They would also have exclusive use of a further 4 of the 5 remaining depots. There would be limited rental income with Veolia making an investment in the refurbishment of these depots. .

There was a question on how many operational tasks had been examined to provide savings. An example was having an operative assigned to lock up a park which  could be looked at as presently this was not applied to all parks or where  there was easy access to the park regardless of a lock. It was noted that  currently options for locking parks was examined at each local level.

The Chair asked the representative from the Employee side to address the meeting and provide their response to the report and its recommendations. Helen Steel, Employee side representative   started her presentation with the recommendation that the Committee do not approve the proposals contained on the restructure of the service and set out the reasons for this:

• The current performance of the parks service was upper quartile and the plans for area based deployment would impact on the performance and perception of Parks.

• The use of compulsory redundancy had not been fully ruled out. In response the Assistant Director for Recreation Services advised the meeting that there would be considerable effort made to ensure that there were no compulsory redundancies. He was confident that the available positions would be recruited to with existing staff. This was communicated to staff at the 2 mass meetings organised. 

• It was further claimed that not all staff had  received the consultation documents on time and an extension to the consultation period had not been agreed. The consultation document contained little information on volumes of work , the effect of the changes or the selection process. An  assertion was made that this could make the service subject to legal challenge as the consultation could be deemed not meaningful as the document did not contain the  information as set out above. In response to these claims, the Assistant Director for Recreation services informed the Committee that the consultation document identified the options for selection and at the meetings with staff it was made clear that there would be engagement with the staff and union branch officials to agree this process. Subsequent to this there were meetings  held with staff and a management assessment selection template agreed which may now not be necessary as the need to make compulsory redundancies was diminishing. The Committee noted that a 40 day consultation period was established which recognised the need for further discussion on specific issues and the Easter period. There were no formal requests to extend the consultation. Information was provided in the consultation on the future service costs, employee numbers and deployment. There were also indications given on  where there would be work programme reductions. As the restructure of the service was in an embryonic stage there would be further work on how the service will move to the new zonal/team structures.   In terms of the legal position of the consultation exercise, the Monitoring Officer advised that as a rule where there is a proposal to dismiss then notification of this should be supplied to employees 30 days before this would take effect, which in this case, had been done. It was as noted that not all employees had received their consultation packs at the same time due to being located at  wide and varying locations ,  being on annual leave, and  Easter period leave . However, what would be considered in the event of a legal challenge would be the overall efforts made by the service on consultation and given that they could demonstrate the considerable efforts made to avoid compulsorily redundancy and could evidence that they had engaged in staff meetings it was unlikely that the service would be found to have not followed their public duties.

• The deputation claimed that information on potential redundancy payments or selection methods was not circulated effectively to allow employees to gain a correct idea of what their redundancy payments would be. In answer to this assertion, the Committee were informed by the Assistant Director of Recreation services, that it had been  recognised that Parks staff would not have access to Harinet, the internal Council website which contained a voluntary redundancy calculator. Instead this information had been calculated for them  and supplied in writing.

• The deputation disputed that there were plans to delete the vacant gardener apprentice posts or to reduce the number of agency staff. They felt that the  budget for apprentices should be re-directed to reduce the number of redundancies. In answer to this, it was noted that there were 4 apprenticeship gardener posts with plans to delete two of these posts .The remaining two posts would be recruited to as part of the Council’s wider responsibility to offering some apprenticeship opportunities.

• They advised that the  report had not provided an indication of past spend on agency and consultant staff. There was allocation in posts  for the use of agency staff to cover hygiene duties and maintenance works.  The deputation disputed the need to employ agency staff to cover maintanence work as there was a consistent demand for completing this work particularly in housing estates where maintenance of shrubs and trees was key safety aspect. In reply it was noted that there had been significant reduction in the use of consultants. The service improver working with the service had completed their term of employment in December 2010.  It was noted that the service had major externalisation programmes but the consultants ,that were managing these projects, were funded from external sources. There had been major reductions in the use of agency staff but there would be a need to call on  some agency staff at certain times in the year due to the seasonal nature of the  works in Parks.

• The deputation proposed that the remaining budget for Parkforce be redirected to the Parks service to reduce the need for redundancies. As there was already a considerable reduction in park staff presence in the day, it was questionable whether Parkforce staff was affordable and therefore  their presence required in the evenings and weekends. It was recommended that instead more gardener posts  should be recruited to as they were able to have the dual role of providing a presence in the parks during the day and  keep up the necessary maintenance of trees, shrubs and bushes which contributed to the safety features of a Park.  The Assistant Director for Recreation service advised that there have already been significant reductions made to grant funding and the service were in discussion with stakeholders on how best they could support volunteering led activity.

• The deputation claimed that there were plans for volunteers to take on some of the grounds works which had health and safety implications and costs that would incurred in training participants. Instead this funding should be used to keep existing Parks staff and avoid redundancies. The Assistant Director reported that the voluntary group BTCV obtained  grant funding to carry out some parks duties and they were obliged to include them in the consultation on the restructure of the service. There would be no compromise in relation to health and safety and there was not the expectation that core grounds maintenance task would be undertaken by volunteers.

• The deputation reflected that the consultation gave no indication of future staffing allocations and provided no information on the strategy behind the staffing reductions to frontline staff. They felt the impact of reduced grounds staff would be felt by resident’s .Employees had further suggested alternatives to the reduction in staff i.e. working reduced hours, undertaking flexible working and considering retirement options. In response , the Committee learned that significant reductions had been made in both management and support staff with increased expectations and demands on the remaining posts. It was advised that pro rota the reductions in management staff were equal to those proposed to frontline staff but met through a deletion in vacancies and voluntary redundancy. There were no further changes to Park operatives required and there was no contact from other staff in the service about reducing their hours or suggesting alternative working arrangements to warrant this proposal.

• The deputation advised that there were vacancies in the service which had not been set out in the consultation document. They asked that these be advertised internally to allow staff, with the potential for displacement to apply and avoid redundancy.   It was noted, in response, that the vacancies were a result of voluntary redundancy applications. These posts had recently been advertised internally and the Assistant Director was confident that these posts would be filled with existing staff.

• The deputation informed the meeting that staff were unhappy about the lack of consultation over the decision to allow Veolia to take over some parks depots, and felt that this pre-empting the outcome of the consultation.  There were strong arguments for keeping depots in parks, both for staff presence as a deterrent to anti-social behaviour and also to reduce travelling time and associated costs.  The Assistant Director for Recreation services advised that the closure of the depots, following the reductions in Parks staff had been avoided by coming to this agreement with Veolia and they would continue to provide a presence in and around the depot site. The waste management contract had been based on local area delivery which this arrangement also responded to.

• In relation to the claim that there would be a cut in the number of visits to sites for litter picking, it was noted that there would be a review of the existing programme/waste volumes collected/numbers of bins/integration of litter and dog waste.

Before considering the recommendations the Chair asked the Committee to put forward any further queries they had.

Clarification was sought on the total number of consultants and agency staff currently employed by the service. It was noted that there were 2 consultants funded by the Capital programme. These were one off investments already agreed by Cabinet. There had been 11.5 FTE agency staff which had been reduced to 6FTE. These remaining posts were to respond to seasonal requirements of Park maintenance.  The Committee noted  that the notice period of staff taking voluntary redundancy would fall within the summer months and  there was scope to consider what duties were carried out in this period by agency staff.

There was considerable concern expressed on area deployment of Parks operational staff and whether there were  enough cleaning operatives in the structure to agree recommendation 3.1.5. The Chair proposed that two extra posts be assigned for cleaning duties to enable this recommendation to be agreed.  This was in response to the concerns and complaints received by members of the Committee from residents about the recent cleanliness of parks in their local areas. The Interim Director of Urban Environment asked that this proposal be considered carefully as there would a lot of challenges to be managed by the service and therefore the context of this request should be considered with this.

Discussion ensued on how these two posts would be added to the recommendation in terms of the budget allocations. The  Chair agreed that he would discuss the addition of these two posts with the Cabinet Member  or the Leader  but he was confident that they would be agreed .In the event that they were not agreed with, he would provide a report back to the  next Committee on this.

RESOLVED

1. That it be noted the proposals for the reshaping of Recreation services was based upon the need to achieve initial budget savings of £1.53m from 1 April 2011.

2. That it be noted the proposed Parks related changes/reductions only relate to Parks management and maintenance, and not the ongoing delivery of grounds maintenance services to Homes for Haringey and Highways.

3. That the focus and shape of the new structure for Leisure services i.e. Client Operations and Commissioning be agreed.

4. That the specific changes and reduction in the establishment taking into account the outcome of consultation set out in the report be agreed. This is with due regard to the Authority’s public sector equality duty.

5. The area based deployment of Parks operations staff with an additional 2 posts included and allocated to cleansing duties be agreed. These added posts were subject to discussion and agreement with the Cabinet Member/Leader, the outcome of which will be reported back to the forthcoming meeting.

6. That the Permanent staffing structure at Broadwater Farm Community Centre be agreed.

7. That it be noted, the completion of the current planned leisure externalisation programme over the forthcoming two to three years would require further organisational review.