Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member Sustainability

The Cabinet Member Sustainability introduced the report. The Gloucestershire Authorities had been looking at the case for joint working in waste to understand the value of potential savings and the implications of realising these savings. The report sets out the work undertaken by officers to implement joint working in Gloucestershire.

Joint working may be divided into three interrelated work streams –

• Interim management arrangements between Cheltenham Borough Council (Cheltenham) and Tewkesbury Borough Council (Tewkesbury)
• Shared collection and depot services between Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and Cotswold District Council (Cotswold) from August 2012.
• Shared disposal / collection arrangements for Gloucestershire.
  
  

A local authority company, for operational service delivery of waste collection and other environmental services, is considered the best overall option for this council for meeting the waste collection objectives of the joint waste programme. This is ideally combined with the joint committee option for shared disposal / collection arrangements as the most practical option for meeting the strategic objectives of that programme within Gloucestershire.

He highlighted an amendment to the first bullet point in the second recommendation and copies of this were circulated.

The Leader congratulated members and officers in their achievements in getting the project to this stage.  To date the council had done some very good work in implementing shared services for the back-office but this was the first time a front-line service of this magnitude had been tackled.  It was a credit to this council that Cotswold District Council were considering buying into this shared service rather than maintain their existing service with an outside provider.

The Cabinet Member Corporate Services advised that care should be taken to ensure that councillors were able to maintain their contact with officers delivering the operation. It was also important that the individual identity of the service at each council was maintained and it was recognised that the approach across all three authorities would not necessarily be uniform.

The Cabinet Member Sustainability advised that in his response to the county on a recent consultation on waste he had made those precise points.  It was important that each authority retained powers for service design and the annual financial settlement.

Resolved that:

1. The interim arrangements for joint depot services between Tewkesbury Borough Council and Cheltenham Borough Council as set out in the business case (Appendix 1) be approved, subject to Tewkesbury Borough Council passing an appropriate resolution confirming their commitment to the formation of a local authority company as set out in section 4 of this report or alternatively authorise the Executive Director to work with Tewkesbury Borough Council to develop another interim arrangement that may deliver the required savings such arrangement being time limited to 31^st July 2012.
   
   
2. The Executive Director, in consultation with the Cabinet Member Sustainability,  the Director of Resources and the Borough Solicitor be authorised to develop a detailed business case to form a local authority owned company wholly owned by Cheltenham Borough Council and Cotswold District Council (and Tewkesbury Borough Council if it passes an appropriate resolution as set out in section 4 of this report) and to agree all necessary documentation in order to have finalised documentation in place by June 2011 subject to

3. Having considered the risks set out in the paper attached to this report at Appendix 4, the Executive Director be authorised to negotiate the terms of all the relevant documentation to implement the recommendations of the Joint Waste Partnership in consultation with the Cabinet Member Sustainability, the Director of Resources and the Borough Solicitor and to bring a further report to Cabinet in September 2011 for final decision on this matter.