Agenda item

The Director, Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) presented the WRS Service Plan 2026/2027.

As detailed in the report, the Board signed off the WRS Service Plan each year. This process helped to make Members aware of what the service was proposing for the relevant financial year and provided a sign off that some central government bodies liked to see in relation to service delivery plans e.g., the Food Standards Agency.

The plan followed the pattern of previous years and had an Executive Summary to pick up on the main points. This year’s plan continued to consider the long-standing strategic priorities for local authority regulatory services provided by the Department for Business and Trade (DBaT), as these provided a framework that allowed WRS to have a golden thread back to the priorities of the six partners and to link to the requirements of the various national bodies that oversaw the work of WRS.

Whilst WRS had retained these for this purpose, the focus of this year’s plan remained on the tactical priorities identified in the service’s Strategic Assessment that had been refreshed for the coming 3-years. This piece of work reviewed the full data and intelligence picture and looked at emerging threats. The assessment recommended retaining our cross-cutting priorities but rolling more work into the following:-

• Supporting a safe and vibrant night-time economy

• Promoting the responsible sale, breeding, and ownership of dogs

• Promoting safe, clean, and healthy communities

As highlighted in the report, most aspects of business-as-usual fitted into these priorities, particularly the last where things like environmental permitting and food hygiene related to businesses outside of the night-time economy.

Again, a range of high-level activities against the 3 tactical priorities were identified within the plan so that Members were aware of the general focus of the workload. Below this would sit several plans, either team based or cross cutting that would be used to drive the actual business activities.

The plan had been devised in the face of on-going financial uncertainty with money being tight across the public sector. Both businesses and households continued to feel the pinch, and this had led in the past to increases in work for regulatory services as businesses might take more risks to survive and households sought to reduce expenditure on what might be essential products.

Although WRS did not yet have clarity on what form of unitary local government would replace the two tier arrangements in Worcestershire, the bids put forward by the partners gave a route for either the continuance of WRS as a shared service alongside Public Health if the decision was a north: south split, or to plug into a unitary county model at a suitable level in the event of that option being the Government’s choice. This should give staff the confidence to focus on what needed to be done in the intervening period.

Working with businesses and other partners would remain essential in the coming year or two to generate income and mitigate financial risk but also to ensure that outcomes were delivered that matched the priorities of partners and stakeholders. Delivery for other local authorities also remained a key income generation strategy, supported by limited work for the private sector and any specific grant monies that WRS felt were worthwhile pursuing. WRS had built on our client-base post pandemic with new clients for dog-related support, and officers hoped that they would be able to identify new ones, although over time this would get harder especially as the unitary decisions became public and other districts supported by WRS began to look closer to home at future solutions. Officers did however remain hopeful that this strategy would remain fruitful in the immediate future and even post-vesting day, some of the newly formed authorities may see the sense in continuing to buy support for certain functions from established expert teams.

Officers would continue to use intelligence where they could, to drive the business forward and the embedding of this approach and its associated processes would continue.

As with previous years, Members were being asked to pay particular attention to the provisions for food hygiene delivery in the coming year. This was in order to meet one of the recommendations of the 2017 audit by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) who were keen that Members had a better understanding of the demand in this service area when they authorised the plan going forward. This year, details of the improvement plan sent to the FSA just after Christmas to help demonstrate the partners’ commitment to attempting to meet the provisions of the Agency’s statutory Code of Practice had been included.

The Risk Register had been updated to reflect the current position in areas like IT provision and development, staffing levels, and our reliance on contractual relationships for income. The threat from cyber-attack had become more real in recent years as the devastating consequences had been felt by colleagues in other local authorities elsewhere in the country. Officers continued to work closely with the WRS ICT host, Wyre Forest District Council (WFDC), in order to limit the risk of this and WRS officers received regular training and reminders of the threats faced. Our teams had for many years been using mobile and flexible work patterns which had yielded efficiencies but our reliance on ICT provision to deliver this did increase our vulnerability to disruption.

Members raised a number of questions with regard to mitigating cyber security, what specifically were WRS doing?

In response the Director, WRS, reassured Members that the Technical Services Manager, WRS liaised regulatory with their ICT host authority, at WFDC; as WRS slotted into their wider cyber security plan. The Technical Services Manager, WRS also liaised regularly with  Bromsgrove District and Redditch Borough Councils ICT teams for which WRS relied on for some services, WRS were also included in their Business Continuity Plan.

Councillor A. Scott, Worcester City Council, thank the Director, WRS for a very useful plan. He also referred to one of the three priorities, namely –

‘Supporting a safe and vibrant night-time economy’

Councillor A. Scott informed officers that he was aware of enforcement issues raised by businesses and residents, specifically with pavement licenses and  furniture being left outside of premises, making it hard to access and clean areas. Could enforcement be included in the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)?

In response the Director, WRS, informed Members that such enforcement was included in the relevant teams ‘Team Plan.’ Officers were aware of the issues raised by Councillor A. Scott. The WRS twelve KPI’s had been agreed by the Board, however, officers could include relevant enforcement information in the quarterly Activity and Performance Data, should Board Members so wish.

Councillor A. Scott expressed his thanks and agreed that it would be useful to have information for Members to consider as to how enforcement was being managed and monitored.

The Licensing and Support Services Manager, WRS, further responded and in doing so drew Members’ attention to page 94 of the main agenda pack, which detailed information on Pavement Licensing. The team had looked at areas of compliance and non-compliance, as this had been included in the Licensing teams, Team Plan.

The Licensing and Support Services Manager, WRS, also responded to a question on the new primate licensing and in doing so informed Members that only one person had come forward for a primate licence. The WRS Communications Officer had engaged with vets and had produced a lot of communications on primate licensing, whereby officers had taken a couple of enquires following on from the communication releases.

RESOLVED that

1.1           the Worcestershire Regulatory Services, Service Plan 2026/2027 be

approved, and

1.2           Members specifically note the level of work to be undertaken by the

service this year in relation to the partners’ roles as local food

authorities.