Issue - meetings

Informal Debate

The Asset Development Manager introduced the report.

The Asset Development Manager and the Development Manager and said the following in response to Members’ questions:

      i.         There were no major risks, there was just a short period of time to but contract out to tender.

    ii.         There was a financial risk in not securing a contract in time. Could go over budget if not found.

   iii.         Current employees were Cambridgeshire based.

  iv.         This would be advertised on the Council website, therefore there were opportunities locally and nationally.

    v.         There did not need to be a consultation with the Executive Councillor regarding the end of the previous contract.

  vi.         It would be difficult to pause the process now as the current process may time out and we would be left with no service.

 vii.         A decision could be taken at a later date if Members wished to consider bringing this back in-house.

viii.         The Executive Councillor stated that he did see an early draft of this report however due to timescale no other option than to proceed with Officers recommendation. However does agree that Members should have been advised well in advance so an informed debate could have taken place.

  ix.         There was 1 full time toilet cleaning attendant at Lion Yard and a mobile team that clean the other 14 sites. There were 6 workers in total. There were also supervisors who oversaw the cleaners.

    x.         Monthly KPI monitoring meetings took place with the contracting company.

  xi.         For the actual asset itself, any repairs that were necessary were managed by the Operations Team.

The Chair asked the Committee informally if they were able to make a decision today what would their response have been. The response was that 8 Members would have approved the recommendation and that 1 Member would have abstained.

Information note:

This Scrutiny Meeting was an informal meeting as the agenda was not published in time to meet the legal requirement for 5 clear days’ notice of a meeting.

The decision on the Building Cleaning Contract would be taken by the Executive Councillor for Finance & Resources after the (informal) meeting, who would consider all the points raised in the debate. The decision would be reported to the next Strategy and Resources Scrutiny Committee in November. 

The decision was available to view here.