Further to minute 64, of 12 March, 2018, the Strategic Commissioner for Environment, Mark Smith, introduced his report on the re-commissioning of Highway Services from October, 2018. Bam Nuttall (BAMN) recently agreed that the current strategic contract for Highway Services, worth approximately £6M per annum, would come to an end on 30 September 2018 after a six month extension to the original four year contract that commenced in April 2014.

Following an options appraisal process, approval was given in November 2017 to bring the Highways contract back under Wirral Council’s control from 1st October 2018.

At the last meeting of the Committee on 12 March 2018, the high-profile nature and progress of the Highways Re-commissioning Project was discussed and it was resolved that ‘the Committee wish to be satisfied by way of a written report that the procedures are in place to ensure full preparation for transfer i.e. costings are in place for plant, equipment, materials, adequate supervision and management resources; and that the issue be subject of an additional entry in the risk register’.

The report gave details of the management of the transfer project, including:

·  HR / staffing and health and safety

·  Depot premises and ICT / Communications

·  Commissioned work

·  Plant, equipment, vehicles and stock and materials

He expanded on a number of these areas and confirmed his expectation that the transfer would all run smoothly for 1 October, 2018.

In response to Members’ comments, Mark Smith’s comments included:

·  BAMN, along with any other company would be able to bid to undertake contracted out works, they did not have any status on any preferred list and these works would be placed on the Chest (the North West’s Local Authority Procurement Portal) for bids

·  He would be able to supply a copy of a staffing structure.

·  The seven ‘planned structural and transport’ contracts listed in the report had always been delivered externally as there were only certain firms which could do some types of work; all local authorities used big firms within the Highways industry.

·  Once the contract was in-house the authority would be looking at all the routine and reactive work, currently worth approximately £2m per annum, and he had already had suggestions from Members and the public as to how some of this work could be undertaken in new and innovative ways.

·  He did expect a large number of the 25 BAMN employees, eligible to transfer under the TUPE regulations, to transfer. There were a mix of employees within the 25 including some senior people too.

·  Once the transfer had gone through there would be an operational arm through delivery services and client and supervising teams within the Council with the need to ensure a robust contract management function was in place. Some opportunities would arise as there was a separate client team of inspectors and some supervisors working in BAMN, who would transfer across working alongside Highways Inspectors in the Council. Further work would be undertaken over the next 6 to 12 months in transforming the service.

·  He assured the Committee that he had talked to colleagues in Risk Management and service risk plans would be updated to take account of the transfer on 1 October, 2018.

·  Discussions had been held with staffing agencies regarding temporary cover being provided within a week if not all staff chose to transfer at the last possible minute.

·  With regard to quality of work, he confirmed that a performance management framework would be in place for all of this work and there would be a Service Level Agreement between delivery services and those in a supervisory role. Indeed, the Council would from 1 October have a greater degree of control in that sub-contractors would be reporting directly to the Council.

Resolved – That the report be noted.