(a)

Councillors Morris, Dann and Smith had called in the decision for the following reasons -

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the decision maker failed to consider alternative courses of action;

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there was no indication of the impact that outsourcing this work would have on the current staff engaged in activities in this area, or the future of the rest of the services;

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there were other courses of action not considered by the report; for instance the decision was offered as a choice of either in-house or private provision, with no consideration given to other models, such as that used by CaterEd, as an example;

(b)

Councillors Morris, Dann and Smith considered that –

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there had been a lack of information/consultation regarding this decision; this issue had been raised at the Place and Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 6 September 2017, following the release of the advert by G4S for environmental enforcement officers in Plymouth (subsequently the advert had been withdrawn);

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if scrutiny had been given the opportunity to consider the decision, it could have potentially made recommendations to improve it and also considered different delivery models;

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consideration needed to be given to upskilling the Council’s existing enforcement officers and also increasing capacity within the in-house service;

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there was insufficient information within the business case to identify how many Fixed Penalty Notices would need to be issued in order to offset the operational costs;

(d)

Councillor Bowyer (Leader) and Ruth Harrell (Director of Public Health) responded that -

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the current available capacity (five officers) had been targeted to specific areas (such as pest control, management of stray dogs as well as enforcement activities); the recommendation focused on increasing the environmental enforcement capacity;

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there had been a commitment within the 2016 manifesto to tackle litter in the City;

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two delivery models had been identified to expand the capacity across the City, either by employing additional staff or procuring an external provider;

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a pilot scheme would be operated for a trial period of 12 months; if this service was delivered through an external provider, there would be an option of a six month break, in order to evaluate the service provided;

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there would be no impact on the staff currently employed within the authority, as they would continue to deliver the existing functions.

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the reasons why other delivery models had not been considered as part of this decision;

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whether the decision had been target/financially driven based on the number of Fixed Penalty Notices issued;

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the rationale as to why one of the call-in reasons had been rejected by the Monitoring Officer;

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the reasons why G4S had advertised the environmental enforcement officer jobs when no decision had been made as to the service delivery model;

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whether as part of the Council’s transformation programme, Street Services staff had been trained to undertake enforcement issues;

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the suitability of this role for an apprenticeship (the role could attract an apprenticeship levy);

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whether the Trade Unions had been consulted regarding the decision and in what forum this had taken place;

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the risk of reputational damage to the Council, if this service was procured from an external provider;

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whether the Foundation Living Wage would be written into the contract (Appendix 1 stated that the National Living Wage should be used).