Agenda and draft minutes

To receive apologies for absence and note substitutions.

Members who are unable to attend this meeting must submit apologies by the end of Tuesday 14 May 2024 to enable a substitute to be arranged, if applicable.

Apologies were received from Cllrs Austin, Busby, Long, Robini and Philip Townsend; with Cllr Barker- Lomax in attendance as substitute for Cllr Austin.

To receive from Members declarations of interests in relation to any items included on the agenda for this meeting, in accordance with Waverley’s Code of Local Government.

There were none.

Waverley Borough Council’s (the Council) contract for off-street car parking enforcement with its current provider (Marston’s Group NSL) expires on the 30th of September 2024, after a short term 6 month contract extension was approved so Waverley Borough Council could review the options available. There are a number of options available to the Council for providing this service once the contract with NSL expires. A project has been undertaken by the Business Transformation team (Waverley Borough Council), car parking teams, and enabling services at both the Council and Guildford Borough Council to explore opportunities to work collaboratively to provide this service. This report sets out the process followed to explore all options and makes recommendations to the Executive. The exempt appendices attached provide more detail on the options.

Recommendation

That the Services O&S Committee consider and comment on the report and make recommendations to the Executive.

Please note the appendices to this report are Exempt and should only be discussed if the committee goes into exempt session.

The Assistant Director – Commercial Services introduced the report and explained the Council’s contract for off-street car parking enforcement with its current provider (Marston’s Group NSL) would expire on 30 September 2024, after a short term 6 month contract extension had been approved to enable the Council to review the options available. Exploration of range of options had been undertaken by the Business Transformation team at WBC together with the car parking teams at both WBC and GBC to identify opportunities to work collaboratively to provide the service. The report set out the process followed to explore all options, together with a recommendation to the Executive that Guildford Borough Council deliver Waverley Borough Council’s off-street parking compliance enforcement officer function.  

Members’ considerations included:

·         Expressing concern with the findings of the Solace report that Guildford Borough Council was at serious risk of failing in its statutory duty to deliver Best Value

·         Whether an option to combine off-street parking with the on-street parking enforcement provided by Surrey CC had been considered

·         Noting that there was an absence of a tendering process, which if undertaken, would have been a risk mitigation; however acknowledging that there was a risk that a low cost tenderer may provide a poor service

·         Querying how the contract would be monitored and how the competitiveness of the preferred option could be demonstrated

·         Whether benchmarking information could be included in the report, and

·         That there was no information on cost effectiveness per parking space.

The Assistant Director – Commercial Services responded accordingly:

·         The recommended option would be a collaborative opportunity with Guildford Borough Council

·         GBC had previously considered options with SCC, the outcome of which had informed the report and recommendation

·         Contract monitoring would be undertaken in accordance with WBCs Contract Procedure Rules

·         The proposal would save WBC £32k per annum and fines issued by each Council would be coded accordingly; and

·         The report would be updated to include benchmarking information, together with setting out how Best Value would be achieved by the proposal.

The Assistant Director was content to make amendments to the report in preparation for the forthcoming Executive meeting.

RESOLVED: That the report be amended to illustrate how Best Value would be achieved by providing benchmarking information, to also include consideration of working with Surrey County Council; together with greater financial detail from Guildford Borough Council and a description of the contract monitoring and reporting method, including the feedback mechanism.