Issue - meetings

To receive and consider a report from the Director of Law and Governance outlining details of the two call-ins received on the CabinetDecision taken on The Future of Cleaning Services – Council Corporate Buildings (Report No. 142 )

The decision that has been called in was a Cabinet Decision taken on 16 October 2019 and included on the Publication of Decision List No: 34/19-20 (List Ref: 8/34/19-20) issued on 19 October 2019.

It is proposed that consideration of the call-in be structured as follows:

· Brief outline of the reasons for the call-in by representative (s) of the members who   have called in the decision

· Response to the reasons provided for the Call-in by a Cabinet Member responsible for taking the decision

· Debate by Overview and Scrutiny Committee and agreement of action to be taken

Please also see the Part 2 agenda

The Committee received a report from the Director of Law and Governance outlining details of the two call-ins received on the cabinet Decision taken on The Future of Cleaning Services - Council Corporate Buildings (Report No: 142).

NOTED that this report was considered in conjunction with the information in the part 2 agenda.

Councillor Erbil reminded everyone of the Purdah guidance and that discussion on the call-ins should not be a political debate.  An argument would need to be made to persuade members to revert the Cabinet decision back for their reconsideration, or the decision should stand. She also advised that Councillor Gunawardena (who was in the audience observing the meeting) would be asked to leave the room for the part 2 discussions as he was a Director of Enfield Norse. The press would also be asked to leave the meeting for the part 2 agenda.

Councillor Erbil invited Councillor Levy to give an outline of the reasons for the first call-in.

NOTED

1.    Councillor Levy set out the reasons for calling in the decision:

·         The reasons for call-in were very intensive, with nine questions raised, six of which would be addressed under the Part 2 agenda.

·         Councillor Levy had attended the Cabinet meeting when this report had originally been discussed and not one question had been raised. He was therefore concerned that decisions were not taking place in an open and transparent way and he questioned the robustness of the governance process.

·         The report refers to a conservative assessment of future cleaning needs. However, these detailed future cleaning needs have not been discussed with Enfield Norse to make a reasonable comparison.

·         The report wrongly assumes that the joint ventures may not terminate. The full cost of the probable termination has not been considered.

·         Although around 140 individual members of staff (up to 60 FTE) shall be considered under the TUPE process, Enfield Norse have over 300 employees. The full status and costs associated with the remaining employees have not been discussed in the report.

Councillor Boztas joined the meeting at this point.

2.    Councillor Maguire, Cabinet Member, Finance & Procurement and Mark Bradbury, Director of Property & Economy responded to the reasons as follows:

·         Councillor Maguire was surprised that this call-in was about what questions had or hadn’t been asked with regards to the report and felt that this showed that it was a very clear and in-depth report which spoke for itself.

·         The contract had been considered in great detail and this was evident from the information provided in the Part 1 and 2 reports.

·         As an Authority we have a responsibility to set good and clear standards of employment therefore bringing this contract back in-house will entitle some of the lowest paid employees in the borough to benefit from decent employment conditions in line with existing Council staff. This is good employment practice and the right thing to do.

·         This option is the only one that also allows alignment of employee terms and conditions with those of Council employees,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 350