Agenda item

The Leader and Portfolio Holders gave brief updates on current issues not reported elsewhere on the agenda:

·       Councillor MacLeod gave an update on enforcement issues and advised that a new Private Sector Housing Enforcement Policy would be brought to the Executive.  This would also cover housing associations and was relevant due to the sad news of the death of a young child in Rotherham due to the conditions he was living in.  Public Space Protection Orders would also be reviewed, and this covered dog fouling and dog controls.  Parking income had returned to approximately 80% of pre-Covid levels, mainly in the larger central car parks.  The bring areas had been removed from some of the central car parks due to fly tipping and the space would be returned to car parking.  There had been a number of complaints about Crest Nicholson contractors working on the Brightwells development parking in the sports centre car park and this would be raised with them at the Brightwells board meeting and an alternative would be considered.

·       Councillor Penny Marriott gave an update on the monitoring of the implementation of the corporate equality objectives action plan by the Corporate Equalities group.  Further initiatives would be brought to the Executive for consideration.  The Safer Waverley Partnership Plan had been reviewed by Overview and Scrutiny and would be considered again by the Safer Waverley Partnership Executive.

·       Councillor Merryweather asked the Council’s Development Programme Manager to give a presentation on the responses received in the public engagement on the Central Godalming Regeneration Project, the slides of which are attached to these minutes and the video would be available on the Council’s website.  He thanked the officers for their work in collating and analysing the responses and concluded by highlighting the financial pressures that the Council was under that necessitated considering this type of project.  The Leader thanked officers for their work and reminded the meeting that the engagement carried out was not statutory consultation, rather the Executive were keen to engage with residents as much as possible.  The designs and concepts would be considered in light of both feedback received and the economic climate.

·       Councillor Mirylees updated on the leisure centre procurement.  Bids had been received which would be scrutinised and negotiations would begin in late December.  Leisure centres were being used as warm hubs for residents to access during the winter.

·       Councillor Paul Rivers updated on the work being carried out in the Housing Service in response to the Secretary of State’s letter following the death of a two year old in Rotherham due to mould in his family home.  All social landlords would have to submit evidence that they have appropriate controls in place to deal with this issue and officers were reviewing their processes with a report to the Landlord Services Advisory Board in February.

·       Councillor Liz Townsend advised that the economic development team had been working with high streets to support them with top-up funds for festive activities to improve footfall.  A joint Guildford and Waverley question time event would be held on 12 December at Charterhouse for businesses.  The planning team were continuing to determine applications on time, despite a peak in applications and thanked the hard work of officers.

·       Councillor Williams thanked GMB and Biffa for their hard work in resolving their dispute and thanked officers for their work on contingency planning during the short strike.

·       The Leader asked the Joint Chief Executive to provide an update on the savings as follows:

o   The council agreed last year to share a senior management team with Guildford Borough Council. The senior team took office on 1 October.

o   The new team comprises 16 senior managers, the cost of which is shared with Guildford. The previous Waverley-only structure had 11 senior managers. Taking into account some investment in executive support, the Waverley share of the annual ongoing saving from the restructure was expected to be £438,000.

o   Given that this had taken effect half-way through this financial year, the in-year saving of £219,000 still exceeded this year's financial target of £150,000.

o   There were also some one-off costs associated with the termination of roles, which were allocated according to the inter-authority agreement agreed by the council in April. The Waverley share of this was £221,000. This was within the separate transformation budget and was not assigned to the collaboration target. Nevertheless, bringing the savings and costs together, pay-back was about 6 months, and then the annual saving of over £400,000 would take effect.

o   In addition, the collaboration had brought other benefits, such as some modest savings of sharing a Section 151 Officer and a Borough Solicitor earlier in the year, some smoothing of capacity in a few areas that are recorded and charged across to the partner council, and the reduction in duplication at wider meetings.

o   The Joint Management Team had now been tasked with bringing forward proposal for further collaboration and a clear methodology would be developed for doing this, which would come forward in the next few months for consideration.