Agenda item

Worcestershire Regulatory Services Budgets 2021/2022 - 2023/2024

Meeting of Virtual meeting, Worcestershire Regulatory Services Board, Thursday 11th February 2021 4.30 p.m. (Item 34/20)

Minutes:

The Senior Business Support Accounting Technician, Bromsgrove District Council (BDC), introduced the report and in doing so drew Members’ attention to the Recommendations as detailed on pages 17 and 18 of the main agenda report.

The Senior Business Support Accounting Technician, BDC further drew Members’ attention to page 19 of the main agenda report. Whereby it was noted that, following further discussions with the Chief Executive, Wyre Forest District Council, the host for Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS), IT and accommodation providers; the Chief Executive had withdrawn their proposed £13k increase in charges for 2020/2021 and 2021/2022. Therefore, Members were being asked to approve the reduced revised budget.

The Senior Business Support Accounting Technician, BDC highlighted that the remainder of the budgets, as agreed by the Board at the meeting held on 19^th November 2020, remained the same.

Appendix 1 to the report detailed the 2021/2022 – 2023/2024 budget breakdown for the district council’s partners and the revised budget for 2020/2021.

Appendix 2 to the report detailed the partner contributions breakdown for 2021/2022 to 2023/2024.

The Head of Regulatory Services responded to a question with regard to Redditch Borough Council’s (RBC) partner contributions, and in doing so explained that partner contributions were based on the original amount of funding that partners put into the partnership in 2010, when the partnership was first formed.

A small exercise was carried out in 2013/2014 to look at revising the partner percentages against the workload created by each of the partner councils.

The only change was that RBC had spent slightly more on its Environmental Health and Licensing services. So, this was reflective of the historical contribution that RBC had always made.

The Head of Regulatory Services responded to a question with regards to Wyre Forest District Council removing the additional £13k increase in hosting WRS. Members were informed that further discussions had taken place with the Chief Executives of each of the partner authorities and that following those discussions the Chief Executive, Wyre Forest District Council had agreed to withdraw the additional £13k charges. However, this was on the assumption that the officer partners of the Board would meet during the summer to further discuss the cost of hosting all aspects of the service going forward.

The Head of Regulatory Services and the Technical Services Manager, Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS), responded to Members in respect of income generation, namely the three additional technical officers working on income generation and the Business and Relationship Manager vacant post.

The Technical Officer, WRS commented that the current Business and Relationship Manager’s post had been kept vacant because of the ongoing situation with Covid-19. Some of those funds had been used for agency staff. Income generation had largely stayed the same, ongoing contracts had continued and there had been some surprising opportunities to bid for additional work outside of WRS’s existing business relationships and significant contracts could be awarded this year. There were some opportunities that officers would be going for.

The Head of Regulatory Services further commented that he could not deal with the Business and Relationship Manager’s post until he had finalised the Licensing and Support Services Manager’s role. He was hoping to compete this within the next seven days. He would then look at the Business and Relationship Manager’s role and if the original reasons for having that post remained the same of if there was a better way going forward.

RECOMMENDED that partner authorities approve the following for 2022/22 and 2023/24:

1.1 the 2021/22 gross expenditure budget of £3,726k as shown in Appendix 1.

1.2 the 2021/22 income budget of £529k as shown in Appendix 1.

1.3 the revenue budget and partner percentage allocations for 2021/2022 onwards:

Council	£’000	Revised %
Bromsgrove District Council	466	14.59
Malvern Hills District Council	410	12.82
Redditch Borough Council	562	17.57
Worcester City Council	530	16.58
Wychavon District	745	23.29
Wyre Forest District Council	484	15.15
Total	3,197

1.4 the additional partner liabilities for 2021/2022 in relation to unavoidable salary pressure.

Bromsgrove District Council	£9k
Malvern Hills District Council	£8k
Redditch Borough Council	£10k
Worcester City Council	£10k
Wychavon District Council	£14k
Wyre Forest District Council	£9k
Total	£60k

1.5 the additional partner liabilities for 2021/2022 in relation to three Technical Officers.

Council	Tech Officer Income Generation £000	Tech Officer Animal Activity £000	Tech Officer Gull Control £000
Bromsgrove District Council	5	6
Malvern Hills District Council	4	10
Redditch Borough Council	6	2
Worcester City Council	5	4	30
Wychavon District Council	7	9
Wyre Forest District Council	5	5
Total	32	36	30

Supporting documents: