Report attached.

The report before Members detailed a Councillor Call for Action.

The Councillor Call for Action (CCfA) allows Councillors to refer matters of concern within the community to the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee. The aim of this measure was to provide Councillors with additional powers that enabled them to respond to local community concerns which had proved difficult to resolve.

In accordance with the Localism Act 2011 and Overview & Scrutiny procedure rule 9 a Member has made a Councillor Call for Action on the proposed changes to the delivery of Community Warden Service following a staff and union consultation that concluded in May 2019.

A Councillor Call for Action had been submitted by Councillor Tele Lawal on 29 October 2019

It was for the Sub-Committee to decide how it wished to proceed with the call for action. It had a number of options it might wish to consider:

1.                    Propose alternative recommendations which the decision-maker has to consider before making a final decision

2.                    Provide comments on what is proposed for the decision maker to incorporate into the final decision

3.                    Take no further action

During the debate Members made reference to missing documents that were not provided in the document pack including the feedback from the resident’s panel meetings, a copy of the existing standard service agreement with Housing and the structural organisational chart that was currently in place.

During the debate Members expressed a number of concerns including:

·        Through this proposal the Housing Community Warden service which was solely for Council housing tenants/leaseholders would be removed. Despite the service no longer being available, Council housing tenants/leaseholders, would continue to pay the same rate as they currently do for the Housing Community Wardens.

·        it was not right to have Council tenants/leaseholders pay for a service that was being transformed to benefit the whole Borough, which could end up focused in particular pockets of the borough.

Officers advised that the proposal was to introduce a public facing area based enforcement service within Environment.

The restructure would allow for savings of £329,000 from Community Safety and CCTV teams.

The report also detailed the proposed Enforcement Team restructure. This had been launched in March 2019 with all staff affected formally consulted and in conjunction with unions. The consultation had concluded in May 2019 and it had been established that there would be changes to the service provided to Housing and paid for by the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and therefore consultation needed to be carried out with the Council’s tenants and leaseholders.

The consultation with the tenants and leaseholders had been carried out in October 2019. The report highlighted a summary of the consultation findings.

Following the consultation and in conjunction with discussions with the Lead Member for Housing the Organisational Change Report had been agreed in December 2019 and shared with all staff affected and Trade Unions.

The re-structure was currently being implemented and would be in place by the end of March 2020.

Following the conclusion of the debate Members came to the view that they had insufficient information to come to a conclusion. They understood however that the Lead Member for Housing did not have to wait for them to come to a position before deciding on whether to proceed with the decision. The Sub-Committee therefore requested that further detailed information be presented to the next meeting of the Sub-Committee on the following:

·        How were leaseholders interests safeguarded under the new enforcement model if the housing warden service was being removed? That includes assurances regarding service charges and what they are entitled to receive (what are the details of the SLA

·        More detail on the operational deployment of the enforcement officers, and comparison with deployment patterns under the Community Warden model.

·        The Sub-Committee would keep the implementation under review and work with officers to monitor its impact and effectiveness with a view to informing the review some 6-12 months later.

·        In addition the Sub-Committee wished to recommend to the Lead Member and Head of Housing to consider terms and conditions of existing community wardens, to ensure they got support to train-up and if for whatever reason they could not  be retained for now in existing roles and/or employed elsewhere in council, ensuring good staff morale.