Issue - meetings

To receive a presentation from the Head of Regulation and Compliance on the service option to reduce the Environmental Service structure by £500k and the considerations given to the different ways of working that this has necessitated

The Committee received a presentation from Steve Smith, Environmental Health and Trading Standards Manager and Terry Wood, Environment and Consumer Team Section Manager, Regulation and Compliance on the service option to reduce the Environmental Service structure by £500k and the considerations given to the different ways of working that this has necessitated.

Mr Smith and Mr Wood indicated that:-

·       Historical savings of £1.1million had been made between 2010-2017; that the current target for 2017-2020 was £500,000; and that this required that a full Service review be undertaken with the aim of achieving £400,000 and £100,000 savings in Phases 1 and 2 respectively

·       The approach to achieve the savings would entail re-engineering processes, demand reduction and improving resilience and a fundamental review would be undertaken of Environmental Health and Trading Standards with efficiency savings being sought in Local Licensing and Taxi Licensing

·       The reduction in the demand for domestic and commercial services would be met by the introduction of thresholds, the development of self-help guides, training of Contact Centre staff and the streamlining of processes. Examples of demand reduction for the service were also provided

·       Income generation would be investigated in the Pest Control Service, Food Hygiene advisory visits and the Dog Warden Service

·       The advantages of the service option would be to improve service resilience, release resources to respond to complex technical issues and community resilience but that impacts would include reduced Public Health protection in respect of statutory nuisance and planning consultations thresholds and proactive health and safety at work and food safety and that response times would lengthen

·       Phase 1 - £400,000 savings would be met by the reduction in the establishment of 9 FTE posts, new income generation of £38,000 and consumables savings of £20,000 whilst Phase 2 - £100,000 savings in year 2/3 would be met following a further management review

Members of the Committee asked questions/made comments on the following issues:-

• Problems caused by the setting on fire of building materials following demolition of buildings and a particular recent example of this was given at the former Kirkstone Public House, Litherland
• Private hire vehicles not displaying their company door signs
• Private hire fares varying for the same journey with the same company
• Cuts in Government grants have forced service provision to be diminished or ceased. As local politicians we should not be afraid to let our constituents know therefore the reasons behind such cuts in services. A communication strategy could be used to raise the profile of the correlation between government cuts and the reduction in public health standards
• Reduced Public Health protection statutory nuisance thresholds and in particular relating to noise nuisance from barking dogs
• Noise nuisance from the dock estate and what action was taken in this respect
• The potential for modelling to be undertaken to assess the negative impact of Government cuts on public health protection  

RESOLVED:

That Steve Smith and Terry Wood be thanked for their informative presentation.