The Cabinet is requested to reconsider its decision in relation to the Parks and Countryside Services Procurement Exercise (PACSPE), in the light of the outcome of the call-in of minute 117 (22 September 2011), considered by the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 20 October 2011.

The draft minutes of the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee are attached for Members consideration.

The Cabinet received the draft Minutes of the call-in meeting of Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 20 October 2011 and noted its recommendations as follows:

“RESOLVED:

That this Committee notes the following:

·  the Cabinet appeared to ignore, and did not even mention, the findings of the Office of Government Commerce Gateway Reviews that the Parks & Countryside Services Procurement Exercise (PACSPE) had been subjected to;

·  no attempt was made to publically question officers from the Finance Department, the Legal Department and the Procurement Unit who were members of the PACSPE Project Board as to whether the ‘risk’ identified by District Audit, and made so much play of in the Cabinet resolution could or had been satisfactorily mitigated;

·  no discussion was had by Cabinet Members of the risks of not awarding the contract.

·  no mention or discussion took place regarding stakeholder management or the views of key stakeholders about the benefits of clear quality improvements that were built into the procurement exercise. In fact, other than the views of the Council Trades Unions, the results of consultation and the views of park users and user groups were not even mentioned by a single Cabinet Member at the meeting;

·  no reference was made to the new post of Community Engagement Manager to work with Friends, stakeholders, user groups and local Area Forums or the new key performance indicators developed through PACSPE to reflect the change to a more customer and community focused service;

·  insufficient account appeared to be taken of the reduction from costs of £8.1 million per year to £7.4 million per year already achieved by the PACSPE process with the potential to reduce costs by a further very large sum.  Indeed, it is hard to understand how the Leader of the Council characterised the potential savings as marginal;

·  no effort appeared to be made by Cabinet Members to discuss or evaluate the additional costs to Council Tax payers of purchasing what has been accepted as worn out equipment requiring immediate replacement at a very significant cost or the TUPE costs of bringing current contractor staff into the Council workforce and pension scheme, per annum, or over the 10 year period;

·  no mention was made of the training and development programme for staff and volunteers or the three to six new apprentices to be created as part of PACSPE;

·  no explanation was given at Cabinet regarding the opposition to a 10 year contract that would reduce annual costs by a significant amount]and improve the quality of our parks and countryside, other than the expressed need contained in the resolution to reduce spending by £85 million over three years;

·  therefore we believe that the decision to refuse to award the PACSPE contract would see the ever decreasing quality of a service starved of investment by this administration which is already characterised by going for the quick fix instead of making the difficult but necessary strategic decisions in the interests of Wirral residents; and

·  this Committee therefore, recommends that the PACSPE  ...  view the full minutes text for item 173