Agenda item

The Chief Executive advised that this report brought forward some proposals for extending the Council’s existing shared services. Watford, Three Rivers and St Albans had come together to consider the extension of some existing arrangements and some new arrangements.  There were three services in the report being considered legal, procurement and emergency planning.  Three Rivers already shared procurement with Watford so that would be an extension of that shared service with St Albans. Emergency planning is currently done by Herts County Council but during the pandemic they withdrew that resource (Watford had also used the service).  St Albans had a very good emergency planner and we were all looking to use St Albans.  The new service which was being proposed for sharing was Legal which would just build on the existing shared services that we have around Finance, ICT, Pest Control, Environmental Health and Revenue and Benefits.

The proposal before the Committee was to ask for agreement to continue with those discussions and to look at a business case to see if it was worth entering into. 

A Member said they could see two Councils working comfortably but would 3 Councils work comfortably?  The Chief Executive advised that the key to that would be the structure that was put in place behind the legal service.  The current thinking was that we would have a new senior post in Legal to run the service, as it would be split 3 ways, but we would still each retain a Monitoring Officer.  The changes would be more around the day to day running of the service.  We would have three times the number of staff we have now and this would allow us to increase some of our specialised services which would help with resilience and capacity as all 3 services over time had struggled to recruit.  Having a larger service would be more attractive to candidates.  The key will be having the right structure in place but we do need to consider the financial implications of that.  We do already have a very good legal service this was about resilience going forward.

Councillor Chris Lloyd moved the recommendations set out in the report, seconded by Councillor Raj Khiroya, as it was possible when the business case came back it may not stack up.

A Member was always in favour of a policy which would save our council tax payers money but wondered if this was the first step into a unitary Council and what particular areas do we wish to retain to keep us as an independent Council.

The Chief Executive said this proposal was not about having a unitary Council.  It was about building on existing shared services.  There was some services the Council had decided not to take part in although Watford were looking at additional shared services.  The services we were proposing were already shared or delivered by someone else or we were considering doing for capacity/resilience issues.  We have had shared services with Watford since 2008

A Member said that following Covid, emergency planning needed to be much more resilient and the Council needed more focus in this area. 

A Member asked about the branding of it and could emails and letterheads have three rivers branding on them.  Any letterheads as a minimum would be jointly branded. 

Why had the Council chosen to work with those two neighbours and not other Councils?  The Chief Executive advised that the conversations came about as we already have a number of Shared Services with Watford and St Albans have some financial difficulties and one of their options was shared services.

On being put to the Committee the motion was declared CARRIED by the Chair the voting being unanimous.

RESOLVED:

Agreed that officers should continue to develop business cases for the initial range of shared services comprising Legal, Procurement and Emergency Planning with the intention that these are implemented between April and September 2022 subject to a satisfactory business case.

Agreed that specific proposals supported by a business case and associated staff communications plans, are to be brought to Policy and Resources for agreement when discussions with neighbouring authorities have concluded.