London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

AGENDA ITEM

THE EXECUTIVE

19 FEBRUARY 2002

REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF LEISURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES

BEST VALUE REVIEW OF STREET SCENE FOR DECISION FINAL REPORT Considering recommendations from other Members groups on major issues that affect the Council and are the Executive’s responsibility.

Summary This report sets out the conclusions of the Best Value Review of Street Scene (Reactive Highway Maintenance, Street Lighting and Street Cleansing). The Review was undertaken over a period of 12 months, between April 1st 2000 and March 31st 2001. In accordance with Statutory guidance, the Review included a number of stages namely Challenge, Consult, Compare and Compete.

This report sets out a summary of how each of these stages was undertaken together with a summary of the findings and the conclusions that were reached. Also included in this report is the proposed Improvement Plan for the Street Scene service together with 3 options for the future delivery of the service and the capability of each of the options to deliver the service in the manner required. A preferred option is included.

This report was completed prior to the recommendations of the Policy Commission being delivered to the Executive at the end of May 2001. Where reference should be made to the Policy Commission Report, the text has been annotated with the mark * PC. A summary of the findings and recommendations of the report is attached as Appendix 8.

Recommendation

The Executive is asked to recommend to the Assembly that:

(i) The proposed Improvement Plan is agreed

(ii) Option 1 of those put forward for future service delivery is agreed

Reason

This will enable the Council to move forward with it commitment providing high quality services and make the Borough a Cleaner, Greener and Safer place to live, work and travel through Contact: Head of Technical and (Telephone) 020 - 8227 3300 Peter Adams Operational Services (Fax) 020 - 8227 3231 (Minicom) 020 - 8227 3034 E-mail: [email protected]

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

Executive Summary

Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

1.0 Following 1999 Community Survey and concerns with litter and the fear of crime, Reactive Highways Maintenance, Street Lighting and Street Cleansing were chosen for first year BV reviews, and at the same time physically integrated under the theme Street Scene to give a seamless service.

2.0 The Street Scene review has therefore been set against a background of substantial organisational change concurrent with the Review and this has been reflected in the Option Appraisal and the Improvement Plan. Partly because some of the service is outsourced and has been recently competed, the decision was made to allow the new combined street scene services to bed down for up to eighteen months before re competing it or engaging in a public private partnership.

3.0 The Service Review Initiation Form (SRIF) set the terms of reference for the review as confined to just these three services recognising that otherwise the scope of the review could become too wide. However, it became obvious from the outset that Street Scene was always perceived by stakeholders as much wider than it is.

4.0 The Review revealed major cross cutting interdependencies exist between Street Scene and other service areas. Civil Engineering, Planned Highways Maintenance, Traffic, Transport and Waste Services, Housing and Health, Public Health and Education are interlinked and share external contractors.

5.0 As all of these services are subject to 2nd and subsequent year reviews it was clear that major changes in procurement options immediately following the review would have serious knock on effects on these other services. The Review Team felt that options such as public/private partnerships and market testing should be re-evaluated early on in the Improvement Plan so as to dovetail into the cross cutting options as they arise.

6.0 The Review highlighted the emphasis the Stakeholders placed on cleansing issues more so than Highways Maintenance issues although there is some concern about footway maintenance particularly statutory undertakers’ reinstatements.

7.0 It revealed several weaknesses, such as the Council’s perceived reluctance to enforce anything from prosecution for abandoning vehicles, dog fouling, fly posting, and graffiti to the dropping of litter on the street. Up to the 12th of December, 58 Fixed Penalty Notices were issued of which 10 were subsequently cancelled, 23 paid the fine, 11 were overdue and 14 are pending.

8.0 These views were strongly echoed by the Members and carried forward into the Policy Commission debate. Enforcement issues therefore figure strongly in the Improvement Plan

9.0 The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) analysis indicated weaknesses across nine major criteria relating to ‘ Business Excellence’. These included: -

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

Leadership Resources People Satisfaction Policy & Strategy Processes Impact on society People Management Customer Satisfaction Business results

All criteria scored below 60%, the industry average being 70%. These all pose challenges to be addressed early on in the Improvement Plan.

11.0 The MORI polls, whilst showing the borough as about average both London wide and nation-wide, felt that there were “information gaps”. For example, the public does not seem to be aware of the council’s free ‘surrendered vehicles’ service and that a Public Private Partnership contractor rather than the Council is responsible for sweeping and litter picking the A13 and its slip roads and roundabouts. MORI also felt that insufficient was being done by the Council to celebrate and communicate success such as the consistently high levels of satisfaction with Street Lighting.

12.0 One of the fact finding consultation conferences wanted zero tolerance enforcement, an end to bureaucracy, better communication between Council Departments, a one stop shop, improved education and an end to urban clutter.

13.0 In addition it was felt that Parking Policy was very much tied into Street Scene and cleaner streets. The Council was seen as having inconsistent policies:- on the one hand it encourages off street parking and on the other it is demolishing garages. The Improvement plan calls for better inter departmental co-operation whilst recognising the difficulties of sharing ring fenced funding.

14.0 The Policy Commission echoed the Conference feelings strongly in its recommendations (see appendix 8): -

• Working arrangements, including a single framework, a central budget, a one-stop shop approach and matching Community Forum areas. • Enforcement – rigorous use of existing legislation • Inter-departmental working/innovative approaches/multi-tasking • Education and Publicity – especially children, effects and costs of their actions • Abandoned Vehicles – set initial value threshold of £500 • Public Highways – rigorous enforcement of NRSWA • Design Standards – Design a Highways and Public Areas Design Manual • Urban Clutter – set up a street furniture Assets Register – reduce visual impact • Street Lighting – Continued lighting improvement to reduce crime and improve road safety • Refuse Collection and Street Cleansing more proactive approach subject to ELWA • Financial Implications – efficiency savings required but increased budget provision recognised

18.0 Three options for the service were considered: 18.1 Restructuring of the in-house service and regular review of procurement optimized to meet major cross cutting service provision. (Appendix 3) 18.2 Formation of a public private partnership. (Appendix 4) 18.3 Joint commissioning or delivery of the service. (Appendix 5)

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

Option 1, supported by Members, was chosen over the other two options because it did not compromise or foreclose the other two procurement options that have now been included as part of the Improvement Plan.

19.0 The Improvement Plan has taken as many of the issues, public aspirations, Members' and staff views on board as is reasonable and practicable. It calls for streamlining of the service, continuous improvement and monitoring. It addresses the growing nuisance and cost of abandoned vehicles that currently undermines the cleansing service. It is consistent with the options proposed for the service.

20.0 An overview of the Improvements invoked in the first 7 months following the Review is included in Appendix 9.

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

FULL REPORT

1. Background

Prior to the Community Survey (1999) services comprising, Reactive Highways Maintenance, Street Cleansing and Street Lighting, were separate services provided by the council as part of its statutory obligations.

The Survey clearly indicated what is important to the people and certainly a greener, cleaner safer borough was shown to be amongst their highest priorities.

This was the first major challenge to the way in which we provide these services and influenced the council to make them a priority for the first year Best Value reviews commencing in March 2000.

It was sufficient also to influence management to ‘reshape’ these services. Shortly after the commencement of the BV review resources comprising Street Scene were integrated under one roof at Frizlands Depot under one management structure to provide a seamless service.

This review has taken place therefore, against a difficult background of structural change in the services and the location and manner in which they are provided.

These changes have been challenging in themselves and will only be complete towards the end of the Street Scene review.

The Service Position (see BVR Section 3 Reports) Statement itself is a snapshot of the separate services before integration and the Improvement Plan is based on a vision of a fully integrated continuously improving service meeting the diverse needs of Stakeholders as closely as possible within the resources available.

2. Details of service under review

The Service Review Initiation Form (SRIF), identified Street Scene as three separate services:

• Highways Maintenance

• Street Cleansing

• Street Lighting

3. Challenge phase

Background

The main purpose of the challenge phase was as follows:

• To establish the need for the services

• To establish who the service is for

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

The challenge aspect of the review was undertaken in three phases, internal, external and by a ‘Members Challenge’ structured around questions set out in the Council’s Best Value Toolkit.

3.1 Establishing the need for the service and who it is for

The purpose and need for the services

• Highways Maintenance Commissioning repairs and improvements to 175 miles of highway in the borough, preserving and keeping safe the highways asset. Controlling the activities of third parties on the public highway.

• Street Cleansing Cleansing of all roads, footways, footbridges, subways, flyovers, shopping areas, gullies, litter picking and removal of fly tipping, car parks, garage sites, children's play areas, night soils and cesspools in order to provide a safe healthy and pleasing environment.

• Street Lighting* Providing a service to inspect, scout, maintain and improve the Authorities street lighting columns together with all illuminated and non illuminated road traffic signs and illuminated bollards. Other areas traditionally looked after by lighting are, street nameplates, housing garage areas, public car parks (open) and footbridges in order to provide a safe and secure environment.

The greater part of the Street-Scene services are either statutory, regulatory or demand led and are therefore necessary for the Council to arrange to carry them out. A number of statutes, regulations and codes of good practice proscribe the services. (listed BVR Section 2 – challenge returns) (*It is not a Statutory requirement to have Street Lighting, but once in place it has to be maintained in accordance with laid down standards) Who is the service for? In looking at who the services are for the review team identified over 40 stakeholders (see table 4-1) that have been grouped generically below: - • Local people including the disabled

• The travelling public

• Commercial interests

• National Interests

• Staff and unions

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

3.2 Involving elected members in the challenge process

Three members, Cllrs W.C. Dale, S.P. Gill and A.G. Thomas were assigned to the Street Scene review and guidance notes for members’ involvement were issued in August 2000.

This coupled with the formation of the Policy Commission in November 2000 has been used as the basis for member involvement.

Members have been kept informed with:

• Reports - see minutes BVR Section 3

• Meetings – see minutes BVR Section 3

Members were active participants in:

• The Conference 24th October 2000– ‘The good the bad and the maybe’- see BVR Appendix 5.

• Challenge Workshop (Members) 30th November 2000 – see report BVR Section 3.

• Policy Commission – established November 2000.

The issues challenged by the members were: -

• The authority’s will and ability to use enforcement.

• The scope of what is known as Street Scene. They felt that Street Scene should include abandoned vehicles, fly tipping, fly posting, graffiti, dog fouling and other public health issues.

• They challenged the efficiency of delivery of services particularly Street Cleansing (its remit is perceived as wider than it is).

• They favoured strong control over the borough's services.

The Member’s views have been reflected in the Challenge phase and the conclusions reached. These have been carried forward into the Policy Commission’s debate and actions flowing from this.

3.3 Involving local people in the challenge process

A number of key stakeholders were identified which included a large number of local people and the following part consultation/part challenge exercises were undertaken.

• The Community Survey (Civil Eyes Research Ltd) – 1999 - see BVR Section 5 evidence 1.

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

• The Baseline Findings Survey (MORI) – January/February 2000 – see BVR Section 5 evidence 1.

• The Report of Community priorities – July 2000 – see BVR Section 5 evidence 1.

• The Conference 24th October 2000 – ‘The good the bad and the maybe’- see BVR appendix 5.

• Challenge Workshop (Members) 30th November 2000 – see report BVR Appendix 3.

• Newly set up Forums - commenced October 2000 – ongoing

• BVPI National Postal Survey – topline findings January 2001. . • Street Scene Telephone Survey (MORI) – Feb 2001

The review team considered feedback from the various challenges throughout the review and the results are discussed more fully later in this report.

3.4 Internal and external challenge and scrutiny undertaken during the review

The review team comprised a mix of those responsible for the provision of the three services together with external reviewers.

Internal challenge was undertaken using a ‘Challenge’ pro-forma derived from the Toolkit and the team attempted to balance internal and external challenge from residents and external organisations including competitors.

3.5 How comparison was used to drive the challenge

A number of comparison exercises were undertaken for the review to compare the service with other providers. The comparative data collected enabled the team to challenge all aspects of the service including the quality, cost and competitiveness. The findings from such comparisons made and the conclusions reached are outlined later in this report.

3.6 Ensuring that the challenges lead to specific proposals for significant change

The most important challenge to the way in which these services had been delivered was the outcome of the Citizens’ Panel Community Survey that showed that people wanted a greener, cleaner, safer borough. This was a catalyst for significant change and integrating the services, albeit during the course of the review.

Other issues were raised during the review directly following from the challenge phase such as: • Making the services more effective, responsive and flexible by changing working methods so that they are directed more quickly to the hotspots and so that ‘we don’t sweep thin air’ because of slavish adherence to contract rotas.

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

• Making the services more economic by reducing costs of the service by reviewing the entire operation in terms of human and physical resource required to meet operational needs.

• Making the services more efficient by better supervision, rigorous inspection and by making all staff the eyes and ears of the council to report lapses in the service.

• Making the services more competitive by benchmarking with other authorities and driving the standards up.

• Making the services more seamless and transparent to users by reviewing customer care and introducing a recorded 24-hour information and reporting service.

3.7 Summary of findings

Table 3-2 provides a summary of the key findings of the challenge phase of the review. See BVR Section 7 – 4 C’s challenge report. ******************* performance related contract? Table 3-2

Key findings

• The services are mainly statutory requirements of the council.

• The services could be provided externally.

• The services are already partly outsourced.

• A continuous challenge process needs to be enshrined in the Improvement Plan.

• Improvements in these services are essential in the opinion of local people.

Conclusions

Since the Street Scene services are mainly statutory requirements the possibility of the council ceasing to provide the services is not an option. Some services could be reviewed for example, it is not a requirement for authorities to undertake highway de-icing (House of Lords Goodes v. East Sussex), but provision could not be abandoned lightly. There may be scope for abandoning night scouting by using the public to report lamp outtages but it would have to be pilot tested.

The introduction of the concept of Street Scene and the welding together of three highway services under one roof and one management to provide a seamless service means that challenge has to be ongoing in the new structure.

Some of the Street Scene services are outsourced already and there remains a range of future service provision options.

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

4. Consultation phase

4.1 Background

Street Scene has been created/restructured as a result of the first Community Survey in 1999.

Consultation is not a new feature of highways work and major schemes require a lot of consultation.

It is however, a new feature at the level of reactive Highways Maintenance, Street Cleansing and Street Lighting maintenance. The following methods of consultation were used for this review: -

• Comprehensive review of all previous consultation such as the MORI surveys.

• The Conference 24th October 2000 – ‘The good the bad and the maybe’- see BVR appendix 5 *

• Consultation pro-forma developed from BV toolkit*. (see BV Section 2).

• Involvement of Unison on the Review Team.

• Involvement all levels of staff in the EFQM Review – formerly BEM (see Appendix 2)*

*Commissioned for the review

A comprehensive list of stakeholders listed in Table 4-1

It was important to the team to consult as widely as possible recognising the difficulties involved for a remit as broad as Street Scene. The team arrived at what they felt were appropriately targeted procedures for consulting with the various groups.

Some of these were used as ‘trials runs’ for what will be incorporated into the Improvement Plan as methods of Street Scene consulting in the future.

4.2 Ensuring meaningful consultation was undertaken with local people

• The Civil Eyes Research Ltd Community Survey 1999 was commissioned to help set up the new Community Plan and involved, the Metropolitan Police, Barking and Havering Health Authority, Officers and residents. (See BVR Section 5 evidence 1)

• The Baseline Findings Survey (MORI) effectively set up the Citizen’s Panel comprising 1000 local people who are regularly consulted using questionnaires and telephone polls (See BVR Section 5 evidence 1 ‘Report on baseline findings’) . • Similarly the Community Priorities Discussion Groups (July 2000) were drawn from the Citizens Panel. (See BVR Section 5 evidence 1) and the various resulting MORI Reports have been based on consultation with the panel.

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

• The BVPI National Postal Survey. (MORI) January 2001 (See BVR Section 5 evidence 1)

• The Conference comprised a whole range of stakeholders many of whom were borough residents. This provided part of our qualitative consultation (See BVR Section 5 evidence 1)

• The Community Forums comprise local people. (See BVR Section 5 – evidence 3)

• The Street Scene Telephone Survey comprised local people from the Citizen’s Panel and provided us with our main quantitative consultation. (See BVR Section 5 – evidence 1)

Customers and other key stakeholders

The following table lists invitees to the Conference and is representative of the large number of external and internal customers and stakeholders in Street Scene.

Table 4-1

Access Group Developer – Bellway Homes Residents Age Concern Disablement Association Residents Associations Ambulance Service Engineering Consultants – e.g. Road safety Officer Arriva Hyder Sainsbury Chadwell Axe street Project Engineering Contractors Heath Barking Fire station Environmental Health Social Services Best Value Officers Equalities Stagecoach BHB Healthcare First Capital Street Lighting Officer Centre LBBD Harmony House Street Scene Managers Citizens Advice Bureau Health Authority Street Scene workers Council Staff Housing Managers The Mall Shopping Centre Councillors Local Police Traffic Police Crime Prevention Officer London transport Transport for London Dagenham Fire Station Planning Division Vicarage Field shopping Centre

4.3 Taking account of the of the diversity of the community

It is generally recognised that diversity of the community has not been taken account of as fully as it should.

Whilst LBBD literature now take this into account in terms of publication in minority languages, it was felt by the team that Street Scene should review its policy on signing and street information in the detailed Improvement Plan for the consultation work.

4.4 Changes that have resulted from the consultation

Some changes have started to be incorporated into Street Scene as a result of the review including

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

• Introduction of flexible cleansing teams to target local needs.

• Extra staff, increased supervision and cleansing boundaries set to coincide with the forum boundaries.

• Nucleus of enforcement team established.

• Street Cleansing schedules re-targeted to meet actual needs.

• New computer link to speed up removal of abandoned cars (removal time halved).

• Scheme implemented for surrender of unwanted vehicles.

• Negotiations on sponsorship for litter bins.

• Reduction of in-house Highways Maintenance staff numbers coupled with allocation of existing staff to forum boundaries.

• Additional supervision applied to highways work. Staff are now the eyes and ears of the borough.

• Rescheduling of capital programme to meet the priorities of CCTV.

• Review of customer care and introduction of 24-hour telephone access to services.

4.5 Feeding back the results of the consultation to the consultees

• Feedback on the MORI surveys has been published (see BVR Section 3) and is available in LBBD libraries.

• A prcis of the results of some of the surveys has been published in the Citizen magazine.

• Following the review it is intended to publish the results of the Conference and the Street Scene Telephone Survey in the Citizen magazine.

4.6 Consulting with staff and their representatives

Staff at all levels have been involved in not only the review but the changes involved in creating the Street Scene team. The EFQM review also reflected staff stratification.

Two union representatives (Unison) have been included in the review team and apart from the external members the remainder of the team is in the union. One of the members solely represents the union. (See BVR Section 4 – review team meetings)

As part of the BV review process for all services a ‘bright ideas’ suggestion box has been set up and staff at all levels are encouraged to make their views known even anonymously if they wish. (LBBD Policy and Review Group)

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

4.7 Summary of findings

Table 4-3 is a summary of the consultation exercises.

Table 4-3

Stakeholder Method Main Findings Further Group Action Local people The Community Survey Community priorities were a Concept of (Civil Eyes Research Ltd) Greener, Cleaner Safer borough. Street Scene Baseline Findings survey created commissioned ditto The MORI Citizens’ Panel “Evenly divided on quality of Ongoing Baseline Findings Survey pavement maintenance. Good Citizens Panel score compared to other authorities”. “50% satisfied with road maintenance. Reasonably good score” 50% satisfied with Street Cleansing. Lower in some outer London boroughs but higher for inner boroughs. Ratings for street lighting higher than most in London boroughs.

The Conference ‘The good Felt that scope of Street Scene Suggest the bad and the maybe’ was wider. repeating on a Wanted more enforcement ‘zero bi-annual tolerance’ basis. Happy with highways/footway maintenance, no real concerns about type of surfaces. High satisfaction with Street Lighting.

The Report of Community “Making Barking & Dagenham To be repeated Priorities discussion groups cleaner, greener, and safer would regularly. make people have general pride in the borough, projecting a positive image, which would lead on to people wanting to invest in the borough” Ongoing. Newly set up Community Gives excellent opportunity for Forums feedback from community. To be repeated BVPI National Postal Survey Over 55% satisfied with every 2 years.

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

environmental services including Street Cleansing. Repeat interval to be Telephone Survey (MORI) – 48% very or fairly satisfied and decided – Feb 2001 38% very or fairly dissatisfied possibly with local environment. Key annually. issues, abandoned cars, dog fouling, general litter & footway maintenance in residential areas. The travelling The Conference ‘The good Happy with highway maintenance Suggest public (all the bad and the maybe’ (not too disruptive to traffic) repeating on a attendees fell Not happy with quality of bi-annual into this reinstatements. basis. category) Commercial Individual partnering Agreement in principal to partner To be interests meetings with existing term with term maintenance continued. contractors. contractor. Talks with consultants to partner.

National The Conference 24th October Invitation not taken up by TfL. Consultation Interests 2000 – ‘The good the bad elsewhere at and the maybe’ various levels on major highways issues. Ongoing consultation with LOTAG, IAG etc. Members Challenge Workshop They challenged: - Ongoing (Members) consultation. 1. The authority to use Political enforcement. process. Policy 2. They felt the scope of Street Commission Scene. Should include abandoned vehicles, fly tipping, fly posting, graffiti and public health issues.

3. The efficiency of delivery of Street Cleansing (remit perceived as wider than it is).

They favoured effective control.

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

Staff and BV Toolkit consultation pro- That consultation was hitherto Regular pro- unions forma almost non-existent for reactive active HM & lighting – less so for consultation to cleansing. be set up.

Involvement of Unison on ‘Listening’ posture adopted by Ongoing and the Review Team. union. reinforced by consultation by TMT with the Unions and staff Involvement all levels of All criteria below 60% compared staff in the EFQM Review with an “Industry Average” of To be repeated 70%. annually as part of the consult programme.

4.8 Conclusions

Feedback from consultation exercises confirmed stakeholders’ priorities and helped to establish what sort of services they want. It was useful in formulating strategies for the overall future provision and improvement of the services.

With such a large number of stakeholders identified for Street Scene, a strategy for involving them will have to be developed as a priority and reflected in the Improvement Plan.

Clearly the consultation exercises need to be repeated regularly following the metamorphosis of the services early in 2001.

5. Compare phase

5.1 Background

Benchmarking was initiated in 1998 through the IAG and involving the other adjacent boroughs and other city and rural councils.

Whilst it is not difficult in the current climate to find Street Scene identified by other boroughs, very often it comprises different services and it is difficult to compare like with like.

There are already well-developed national performance indicators for these services and CIPFA annual statistics against which these services have been measured and compare favourably.

The borough has made progress in setting up a performance monitoring system and developing local performance indicators (see BVR Section 5- evidence 1).

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

In order to supplement the comparison process, the review used the EFQM model to compare Street Scene with private industry. The exercise showed that for Street Scene all nine criteria were below 60% compared with an “Industry Average” of 70%. It was carried out shortly after the formation of Street Scene at a time when morale was low and before any benefits could be accrued from the reshaping.

5.2 Comparison with the top 25% see Excel spreadsheet BVR Section 5 Evidence 1

The results show that it is not possible to make comparisons with the top 25% in all cases where it is possible: -

Highways Maintenance • The Percentage of total length of footpaths and other rights of way that were easy to use by members of the public is well above the top 25 percentile for London but targeted to reach the top 25 percentile nationally in 2001.

• The average number of days taken to remove fly-tips at 3.3 days is well above the apparent top 25% London figure of 0 .3 days and the National figure of 1 day which neighbouring boroughs appear to achieve also. Initial soundings indicate that other authorities record their statistics differently and this will be investigated further through the Improvement Plan.

• The net spending per head of population on street cleaning is lower than the top 25% for London but substantially higher than the top 25% for the rest of the country.

• In London, the borough is recognised as having well maintained principal roads. (See TAG report BVR Section 5 – evidence 2)

• The Percentage of repairs to dangerous damage to roads and pavements which were carried out within 24 hours at 90% (98/99 figures) compared with 100% for the top 25% nationally and London. Clearly progress needs to be made and LBBD has targeted itself for 100%. Further investigation of how adjacent authorities achieve these figures will be undertaken and the assessment and recording of Category 1 (24 hour) and Category 2 (28-day) defects compared.

• Percentage of links of footpaths and other rights of way which were sign-posted where they leave the road. The LBBD figure of 10% is below the London top percentile figure of 14% and the national figure of 49% and is targeted to improve by 75% in the next year.

Street Lighting

• Percentage of street lamps not working as planned. The LBBD figure of 0.57% is better than the London 25 percentile figure of 0.66% but worse than the national figure of 0.49%. The target is to improve this figure to continuously improve this figure to be in the top 25% nationally as well as the latest CIPFA published figures (Jan 12th 2001) show that: -

For Street Cleansing

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

The percentage of highways cleaned to a high standard to be 69.6%. This compared with 22. 9% in Havering, 54.8% in Newham and 54.7% in Redbridge. This shows a 7% improvement over 1998/1999

For Street lighting

The percentage of street lights not working as planned to be 0.57%. This compared with 0.9% in Havering and 0.62% in Newham. (Top 25% National 0.49% and top 25% London 0.66%) This shows a 16% improvement over 1998/1999.

For Highway Maintenance

The cost of highway maintenance per 100 miles travelled by a vehicle to be £0.74 compared with £0.20 in Havering and £1.01 in Newham. This shows a 6% improvement over 1998/1999

Whilst both sets of figures are just outside the 25 percentile national figures in all they show substantial improvement and better figures for LBBD than its neighbouring boroughs. (Note Street Lighting inside top 25%)

5.3 Comparison with: -

• Public Sector

In July 1998 prior to the creation of Street Scene and in anticipation of Best Value, in order to make comparisons with similar authorities contacts were made with other neighbouring authorities.

It was decided to join the IAG Benchmarking Group organised locally by Redbridge with Newham as a pilot authority and including non-London authorities - see below: -

• LBBD • Portsmouth

• Redbridge • Southend

• Havering • Southampton

• Newham • Cambridgeshire

• Waltham Forest • Wiltshire

• New Forest

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

A number of comparisons were made on costs of winter maintenance, reactive highway maintenance and costs of inspections that showed a spread of costs and methods of measurement. LBBD having has higher winter maintenance costs than rural authorities and appears to be dearer on costs than some of its neighbours, which don’t undertake pre-salting. This is an area that needs more analysis in the current benchmarking club.

As part of the Improvement Plan LBBD Street Scene will re-evaluate all benchmarking including the current IAG club and possibly align itself with one that has a high number of best practitioners. In a move towards this, LBBD has recently joined a dedicated Street Lighting benchmarking club run by Epsom and Ewell Council. And a new Planned Highways Maintenance club with the 33 London Boroughs led by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. (See BVR Appendix 6 – benchmarking)

• Private Sector

There is a well-developed private sector market for services undertaken under the umbrella of Street Scene. Many of the operational services are already outsourced whilst Street Cleansing and some highway maintenance is operated by the in-house teams which were competed under CCT three times to date. Management and admin services for Street Scene have not been competed.

As formation of the seamless Street Scene service is completed part of the Improvement Plan will be to compare the composite services with similar arrangements in other boroughs.

In order to compare itself with the private sector, starting in 1994, the authority contributed to a number of Inter–Authorities Group studies undertaken by Coopers and Lybrand and Ernst & Young.

Direct comparison costs with facilities management companies and multidisciplinary organisations already operating in the public sector are very hard to come by because of the commercial sensitivity of the information. The IAG surveys only give ‘broad band’ statistics, probably because of the difficulty in obtaining essentially competitive information. (See ‘Compete’ report BVR Section 3 – Reports)

A number of major private sector contractors have been in the market for many years, including companies such as Babtie, Parkman, W.S. Atkins, Amey, AMEC, Halcrow, WSP, Hyder and Brown and Root. A number of others have withdrawn from the local authority market or reduced their presence. However, overall the market is relatively strong.

• Voluntary Sector

Street Lighting and highway maintenance do not lend themselves to contributions from the voluntary sector other than the public being ‘the eyes and ears’ of the council as far as lamps not functioning and footway/highway defects being notified. A strategy has been developed for this and forms are available in libraries and public buildings. (See BVR Section 5 evidence 2)

Similarly with cleansing, voluntary clean up campaigns might contribute occasionally to street cleanliness or tidiness of amenity greens.

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

5.4 How did comparison inform challenge on?: -

• The services we provide

The review team identified from the comparison where it was possible to compare like with like, that there were improvements to be made.

A fundamental review of the manner in which services would be provided in future afforded by the forthcoming best value review was the ideal opportunity to increase efficiency.

This has been particularly borne out by the improved performance figures against adjacent boroughs. Achieving top 25% quartile figures across all of the Street Scene services will be the challenge for Street Scene.

• Who we provide them to

The review team cannot foresee any big short-term changes in the composition of the stakeholders and consequently whom the services are being provided to.

In the longer term the Government and TfL’s transport strategy may impact on the highways services.

• How much they should cost

The comparison phase showed that, in general, the costs of highway maintenance is higher than in some adjacent boroughs.

Certainly, for principal roads, the evidence is that they are better maintained as evidenced by the PI’s. For Street Cleansing the spending per head of the population is low but not the lowest for higher standards.

Part of the Improvement Plan will be to keep a close eye on the trends in expenditure on the three core elements of Street Scene.

• Are we the best provider?

Based on quantitative information from the compare process outlined above, it would not be possible to determine conclusively that the council is the best provider of the services, but that it confirms that it has gone a long way towards meeting the top performers.

5.5 Summary of findings

Table 5-3 summarises the comparison exercises undertaken and the conclusions reached.

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Table 5-3

Comparison Comparison with Summary of findings Further action required exercise whom Comparison National PI’s HM & SC Just short of Drive the quality of the from CIPFA top 25 percentile but service upward by better returns improving. supervision and scheduling use of resources. See London PI’s Street Lighting in Improvement Plan. London top 25% IAG 10 local authorities, LBBD median but wide Review of benchmarking. benchmarking including deviation resulting from Move towards club immediately not comparing like with benchmarking with top adjacent London like quartile authorities. boroughs. Commence with Street Lighting & Highway Maintenance. IAG industry National Benchmarking data Analysis based on PI figures construction and benchmarking shows LBBD hourly for authorities where related services figures for rates / salaries / externalisation has taken (CRA) returns engineering services productive hours place. Private sector doesn’t schedules as very appear to perform better (see competitive. Section 5 Evidence 2 & Difficult to obtain ‘Compare’ report BVR commercially sensitive Section 7 – 4C’s) information. Perceived General perception MORI polls show an Continued consultation. comparisons – almost even distribution qualitative. of satisfaction across all Find new methods of three component consultation • Street services. Lighting Better liaison across LBBD • Street Street Scene remit departments to address Cleansing perceived as wider than crosscutting issues and • Highways defined by reactive support seamless, accessible Maintenance highway maintenance, services. • Flytipping Street Lighting and Street Honest measurement of Cleansing. performance on aspects such as flytipping. BV pro-forma The services prior to Services had been To be reviewed under the developed from creation of Street constrained by rigid action plan. BV Toolkit Scene. schedules of CCT. Services could be (and are) outsourced.

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5.6 Conclusions

Before the review of Street Scene it was obvious that service delivery was beginning to fail in some areas such as public cleansing and there was a need to reverse this trend.

It was clear that the CCT driven cleaning regime, with its strict schedule mentality was less than efficient, and growing problems such as abandoned vehicles, which compel LBBD to divert resources from cleansing were undermining its ability to keep the Borough clean.

For this reason LBBD 're-shaped' the services comprising Street Scene. These changes exploit the use of quick response teams who deal with, typically, areas of defective highway or defective streetlights as well as badly littered streets.

The changes have meant that the services now concentrate on the creation of the ‘ward mentality’ and a ‘culture change’ where, for example, rigid cleaning schedules have been removed which neglected to take into account whether or not a road was already clean.

With changes consolidated and performance trends moving upwards, there would be more robust comparison of the services particularly with the private sector as part of the Improvement Plan.

Street Scene will need to regularly review its services to show continuous improvement measured against best practice within the existing or possibly new benchmarking groups.

The main conclusions from the comparison stage are summarised in table 5-4: -

With the exception of Street Lighting, performance indicators whilst showing a marked upward trend in London do fall within the top quartile. There are no highways related PI’s in the lower quartile.

Table 5-4

• The services whilst showing a marked upward trend in performance indicators still do not all fall into the top quartile.

• The objective must be to improve services across this threshold as soon as possible for all three components of Street Scene.

• Without further cost analysis of a ‘reshaped’ and stable Street Scene group, it is not possible to conclude yet that the current format for provision of services fully represents best value.

• Costs, for example for Highways Maintenance, at first glance appear to be higher than for some adjacent boroughs and other bench-mark authorities but: -

• Costs represent a higher standard of service (better highways – less outages – cleaner streets)

• Costs are showing a downward trend.

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6. Compete phase

6.1 Background

The review team has looked at the options for future delivery of the service using the government’s options for future service delivery.

In looking at all of the options the review team had to bear in mind the changes in the service concurrent with the review and how these changes might impinge on future service provision

6.2 Cost effectiveness of the service

The results of the benchmarking helped to establish that the ‘reshaped’ Street Scene services are competitive.

In some instances the services comprising Street Scene are very competitive for example the percentage of highways cleaned to a high standard was 69.6% compared with 22. 9%% in Havering, 54.8% in Newham and 54.7% in Redbridge.

In other instances they appear to be less so for example the average number of days taken to remove fly-tips at 6.3 days before the creation of Street Scene (currently 3 days) compares unfavourably (a) with adjacent boroughs and (b) the top 25% nationally at one day.

The reasons for this are the differences in the method of measurement, differences in the service provided and other intangibles. (see Street Scene Competition Report BVR Section 3)

6.3 Options considered for future service provision

From the seven options proposed by the government for future service delivery (see table 6-1) two are currently considered inappropriate, namely: -

• Ceasing provision of the services

• Transfer/externalisation of the service to another provider

The following option was considered by the team to be inappropriate until the conditions are right for it:

• Market testing of all or part of the service should be delayed until the reviews of other related services in year 2, namely waste management and Streetsafe, are completed. In the meantime we will start discussions with private sector providers so by the time the 2nd year reviews come to their option appraisal stage they will know if there are any major providers of the service out there.

That is that once: -

• Current changes are completed and the service has bedded down.

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• That the policy Commission has formulated policy and that the Assembly endorses it.

• That a specification reflecting policy and the resulting change is developed.

Table 6-1 Options considered for the future of the service

Outline of Approp Not Comments option riate Appropriate Market testing a Well developed external market but currently of all or part of (qualified) inappropriate as services at or near top quartile and the service improving. Services have only just completed (where the in- integration house provider bids in open Haven’t fully explored the option of finding a bidder to competition compete for the Street Scene service. Externalisation to against the a single bidder would have immediate knock on effects private or on winter maintenance, transport, grounds voluntary maintenance, refuse collection, emergency services, sector) housing etc committing LBBD in a year 1 review to changes more appropriate to year 2 and subsequent reviews.

Recompeting those parts of the service competed under CCT possible, but would risk benefits demonstrably accruing from ‘reshaping’. Competing the non-operational (white-collar) aspects of Street Scene is possible, but for possibly marginal benefits as it currently represents the ‘intelligent client’ e.g. Street Lighting term contractor managed by 3 people. Formation of a a Currently in discussions with term contractor Foster public/private Yeoman, May Gurney and Hyder for highways partnership maintenance services.

Further development part of Improvement Plan. Transfer or a Similar to first option in that the current part in-house externalisation and part external service is capable of delivery of of the service to service and should be allowed to continue following another restructuring. provider Review of this is part of Improvement Plan. Restructuring a Has just been completed. of the in-house service Any further restructuring to be part of the Improvement Plan. Renegotiating a Scope for renegotiation of outsourced contracts by of existing extending them and seeking efficiency savings in arrangements return.

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with the current Has been done for 2 major contracts. provider Joint a Potential public sector partners. Apart from bulk commissioning purchase of electricity this has not been fully exploited or delivery of yet. the service Valid option carried forward into the Improvement Plan. Cessation of the a Not possible. service 6.4 Summary of findings

Table 6-2 sets out the 3 options that currently have been taken forward for further consideration together with a summary of the advantages and the issues associated with each.

Table 6-2

Option Details Advantages Issues 1 Restructuring of the • Integration of Street Scene services • Time needed for the in-house service. just completed & showing service service to bed down. improvements. • Street Scene to • Services that affect major cross implement a process cutting issues in subsequent of continuous BV reviews remain intact. review and re- • Committed workforce retained. appraisal of options. • Seamless one stop shop retained. • Improvement Plan. • Fragmentation avoided- • Need to work out accountability retained. political accountability 2 Formation of public • There are partners in private sector • Developed markets private partnership. willing to enter into full or partial for this. partnerships. Expressions of • Street Scene has interest already shown. only just emerged as • Involvement of external capital cohesive business funding and expertise unit.

3 Joint • With other LA’s particularly other • Ensuring in the commissioning or adjacent London boroughs. contract satisfactory delivery of the • Could bring benefits on allocation of shared service. procurement and reduced costs resource in (LBBD benefit from group emergency or purchase of electricity). adverse conditions. • Ensuring clear demarcation of political accountability within agreements.

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6.7 Conclusions

The key conclusions that emerge from the compete phase are set out in table 6-3.

Table 6-3

• Clearly all of the Street Scene services could be externalised and some re exposed to market testing.

• The service has already been partly competed over a period of 12 years. External contractors are used in the main for highways and street lighting work and the in-house contractor for Street Cleansing. There is a greatly reduced devolved in-house highways team that can provide a 1- hour emergency service, winter gritting service and is used flexibly elsewhere at other times.

• There is scope for re-competing the parts of the service previously subject to CCT, but at the risk of losing the advantages of the newly created seamless service. More importantly, inducing change prior to other cross cutting reviews for example, grounds maintenance, could have direct consequences for other services such as Civil Engineering, Traffic and Planned Highways Maintenance.

• In order to market test or recompete the services Assembly agreement of policies set by the Policy Commissions should be in place before a specification could be written for the service(s). This lead in period is not likely to be less than 3 months from the date of completion of the review (31st March 2001) and this is reflected in the Improvement Plan.

• The ‘restructuring of the in-house service’ is a Government option for future provision of the services that has been implemented during the review predicated by early consultation with the end users of the service. As a result, services are already showing a marked upward trend and now fall just outside of the top quartile.

• There is therefore, in the short term no rational basis for externalising to one bidder without monitoring the trend and allowing the Street Scene service to bed down. Thereafter there remains scope for: • Externalising the whole service • Re competing the services on a piecemeal basis. • Competing the administration and design side (white collar) of the services for arguably marginal benefits. The current structure forms an enabling intelligent client. • Partnering with existing term contractors and consultants and utilising their capacity to stabilise in-house human resource. • Partnering with other local authorities and a start has been made on this in terms of procurement of electricity.

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7. Option Appraisal

7.1 Background Option appraisal is set against a background of change within the Street Scene service, other ongoing reviews and the whole modernising agenda. Options set out below are intended to be reasonable, progressive and manageable to consolidate changes made rather than to be radical and unrealistic.

7.2 List of procurement options

(see appendix 1)

7.3 Summary of findings

• Wholesale externalisation of the services would not be appropriate at the moment.

• Street Scene needs to bed down before being exposed to piecemeal competition.

• There are opportunities for partnering to be exploited further.

7.4 Conclusions

The key conclusions to be drawn from the option appraisal are set out in table 7-1

Table 7-1

The in-house Street Scene provision should be allowed to bed in for a period of 2 years.

During this time Street Scene will charge all officers to: -

• Work towards achieving top quartile PI’s across the three services currently known as Street Scene and other crosscutting areas to which it contributes.

• Continue dialogue with potential partners in the private sector.

• Take positive programmed action in a move towards more partnering with adjacent or other authorities with a view to sharing resource, expertise and especially procurement.

• Drive more challenging benchmarking.

• Continuously review parts of the service, which could be market tested.

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This option meets the following criteria: -

Criteria Yes/No Evidence

1. Tackling the issues Yes Community priorities led to Street Scene being chosen identified most in need as first year review. (It was not considered a failing of attention. service) 1. Ensuring the service is Yes Universal access to services is a priority for the accessible to all Improvement Plan and 24-hour access to services is sections of the intended to make the more accessible to working community. people. Translation services are to be widened and access to literature in other languages made available. 2. Meeting relevant Yes Service improvements already manifest. standards 3. Achieving top quartile Yes Target to achieve within 2 years committed to performance indicators. Improvement Plan

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Appendix 1 Options considered for the future of the service

Outline of Appro Not Comments option priate Appro priate Market testing Well developed external market but currently inappropriate as of all or part of a services at or near top quartile and improving. Services have the service (qualif only just completed integration (where the in- ied) house provider Haven’t fully explored the option of finding a bidder to bids in open compete for the Street Scene service. Externalisation to a competition single bidder would have immediate knock on effects on against the winter maintenance, transport, grounds maintenance, refuse private or collection, emergency services, housing etc committing voluntary LBBD in a year 1 review to changes more appropriate to year sector) 2 and subsequent reviews.

Recompeting those parts of the service competed under CCT possible, but would risk benefits demonstrably accruing from ‘reshaping’. Competing the non-operational (white-collar) aspects of Street Scene is possible, but for possibly marginal benefits as it currently represents the ‘intelligent client’ e.g. Street Lighting term contractor managed by 3 people. Formation of a a Currently in discussions with term contractor Foster Yeoman, public private May Gurney and Hyder for highways maintenance services. partnership Further development part of Improvement Plan. Transfer or a Similar to first option in that the current part in-house and part externalisation external service is capable of delivery of service and should of the service to be allowed to continue following restructuring. another provider Review of this is part of Improvement Plan. Restructuring a Has just been completed. of the in-house service Further Improvement Plan to be part of the Improvement Plan. Renegotiating a Scope for renegotiation of outsourced contracts by extending of existing them and seeking efficiency savings in return. arrangements Has been done for 2 major contracts. with the current provider Joint a Potential public sector partners. Apart from bulk purchase of commissioning electricity this has not been fully exploited yet. or delivery of Valid option carried forward into the Improvement Plan. the service Cessation of the a Not possible. service in whole or in part

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Appendix 2 Proposed Improvement Plan

Bulleted actions listed below are grouped broadly into the Summary Improvement Matrix (Appendix 6) and the detailed four-year Improvement Programme (Appendix 7).

Public concerns identified as most in need of attention and Action required to address these concerns.

Each of the MORI surveys has highlighted concerns and made recommendations particularly the Community Survey and the Telephone survey.

The results of the Community Survey and the fact that the requirement for “A reduction in crime and anti-social behaviour is rated the most important desired improvement to quality of life followed by cleaner streets and improved facilities for young people”, was the catalyst for the introduction of Street Scene.

1.0 Brief details and recommendations of the Telephone Survey are listed below.

Areas identified as Action required to address these areas * pc most in need of attention Environment Given the importance residents attach to their local surroundings, the Council should use the findings from this survey to: • identify key concerns and • “information gaps” as it progresses in its Best Value review of various aspects of the relevant services.

Key issues: Key issues highlighted as particular problems in the local area are in line with previous indicative findings in qualitative research for the Borough. • abandoned cars • dog fouling The Council, it is generally felt, did not deal particularly well with these • general litter problems, which suggests that it may benefit most by focusing efforts on these issues, either in terms of: • pavement maintenance in • service delivery or residential areas • communications activity. • Further promotion of the Council’s free service for removing local residents’ unwanted vehicles will clearly help to overcome negativity about the numbers of abandoned cars in the area, which appears to be perceived as more of a problem in Barking and Dagenham than in other areas MORI survey.

Enforcement Dog fouling is highlighted as a major concern in almost all local authorities that MORI surveys. Research in other areas has shown that residents are typically in favour of: • stricter enforcement of laws and stronger penalties against owners of dogs. Areas identified as Action required to address these areas * pc

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most in need of attention Education Residents tend to favour a longer-term solution to reducing litter through:- • better education and • raising awareness, over more visible and immediate measures.

They tend not to lay most responsibility with the Council: parents and the wider community are seen as the most important channel for improving education and awareness. Footway Research in other areas has shown that much of the dissatisfaction with maintenance pavement maintenance is related to local footpaths perceived as being torn up by various organisations to lay cables at different times (e.g. cable TV, telephone connections, water, gas, electricity, etc).

• The Council should communicate any ‘joined-up’ thinking on this issue and ensure that work to repair damage caused is conducted effectively. • The Council must work closely with other private and public service providers to ensure pavements are maintained to the standards required by the public.

Footway surfacing Residents indicate a preference for asphalt footpaths over paving stones when developing or re-laying new pavements. This may reflect current dissatisfaction with the perceived damage to existing pavements in the Borough, most likely relating to uneven paving stones. We would expect this preference to be stronger still if people were informed about the relative costs of the two options.

2.0 Issues raised by the EFQM Review: -

Areas identified as Action required to address these areas * pc most in need of attention Leadership • 2000-2001 Cabinet structure introduced. • Competencies to third tier completed. • New management structure for Street Scene implemented and job re- evaluation being undertaken. • More flexible working and greater accountability.

Policy & Strategy • Policy Commission set up – to report April/May 2001. • Strategies to be developed from the Commission’s findings that concern all of the issues in this table.

Areas identified as Action required to address these areas * pc most in need of

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attention People Management The overall feelings of lack of empowerment has to be addressed by:- • Better communication internally especially with other departments. • More extensive use of IT e-mail, Intranet, written and verbal communication. • Involvement of staff in the decision-making processes at all levels, establishment of ownership.

Resources • Development of resource plans to meet the requirements of BV and the needs of the business. • Better ‘global’ deployment of council resources. This requires addressing of thorny issues such as: • changes in conditions of employment • performance related pay.

Processes • Expansion of the QA environment • Review and documentation of all processes and procedures arising out of the creation of Street Scene.

Customer • Regular, periodic consultation with end users utilising where possible, Satisfaction ongoing BV surveys. • Continuous ‘polling’ of the users at a very local level to be part of the culture of Street Scene. • Results to be regularly monitored to determine that customer needs are being met. People Satisfaction • Encourage ownership and responsibility for work areas. • Encourage rotation within the work group so as to multiskill. • Address communication between work groups and throughout the Council.

Impact on society • Implement regular consultation throughout the 5-year BV cycle. • Drive all three elements of Street Scene and cross cutting issues towards the council’s priorities to provide a more attractive borough in which to live, work and invest.

Business results • Year on year savings and/or tangible service improvements. • Service improvements to be established for each financial year of the review cycle.

3.0 Of the three elements of Street Scene, Reactive Maintenance and Street Lighting were the least prominent throughout the review and this was confirmed. throughout all of the consultation including the Conference, MORI polls etc.

However, the recent Telephone Survey showed some dissatisfaction with footways in residential areas but very high satisfaction with Street Lighting.

Areas identified as most Action required to address these areas * pc

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in need of attention Reactive Footway The whole infrastructure of footways is on average 70 – 100 years old Maintenance and was constructed in the main to very basic specifications prior to universal car ownership and the problems associated with it such as footway parking. The recent MORI Telephone Survey highlighted footway maintenance as the area giving least satisfaction of all the Street Scene functions.

Very little has been invested by the council into maintenance of footways especially on district roads. Coupled with this an effective planned pavement management system has never been introduced to improve the infrastructure systematically. Reactive footway maintenance has been effective in merely ‘keeping safe’. A UKPMS compliant pavement management system is to be introduced as part of the Street Safe BV Review (2001). This will highlight the backlog of work and the required investment to bring the footways up to standard.

In the long term this coupled with a move away from paving stones towards bitmac should lead to a decline in the amount of reactive footway maintenance required and therefore the operational costs, as well as footway safety.

The move towards bitmac was corroborated by the MORI telephone Survey as being in line with resident’s wishes. • Introduce UKPS compliant pavement management system (2001) & prioritise planned maintenance work leading to less reactive work. • Move towards asphalt footways – cheaper safer. • Redirect resource towards district road footways. • Footway strengthening to allow footway parking. • Review recycling regularly and experiment with recycled materials. • Increased enforcement of breaches of: • footway parking. • NRSWA by Statutory undertakers. (New rules and mechanisms coming into place with new ‘ETON’ regulations – electronic notification of stats works)

• Publicise recent MORI & Conference findings. • Continuously review procurement methods. • Lobby the Government to extend the guarantee period for reinstatements.

Areas identified as most Action required to address these areas * pc in need of attention Reactive Highway The305 km of highways infrastructure averages 70-100 years old.

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Maintenance Whilst some of the older roads are waterbound macadam, many roads are concrete particularly district roads and these present substantial maintenance problems. LBBD’s investment in highway infrastructure in recent years has favoured Principal roads and the results of this are evident from the recent ‘Roads 2000’condition survey which puts LBBD’s Principal roads as near the top of the league table, so much so, that ironically they are unlikely to attract additional central funding from TfL until their condition deteriorates with a resulting fall in the PI. In line with other UK wide surveys MORI found that even the motoring public was reasonably satisfied with highway maintenance in LBBD and this has been a consistent finding over the last 2 years. (See TAG report BVR Section 5 – Evidence 2 & Telephone Survey ditto Evidence 1)

• Introduce UKPS compliant pavement management system (2001) & prioritise planned maintenance work leading to less reactive work. • Move towards new quieter surfaces to improve the environment. • Review recycling regularly and experiment with recycled materials. • Improve response times for repairs to defects especially cat 1 defects. • Publicise recent MORI & Conference findings. • Continuously review procurement methods.

Street Lighting All of the MORI satisfaction surveys indicate a high degree of Maintenance satisfaction with the service and this is borne out by the recent Telephone Survey (Feb 2000). However, the Baseline Findings Survey found that ‘a reduction in crime and anti-social behaviour is rated the most important desired improvement to quality of life’ and this has implications for CCTV and therefore lighting. Direction by the Policy Commission is expected to result in more investment.

• In line with current policy, seek improvement on outages. • Identify and improve lighting levels in line with CCTV implementation and reduction in crime initiatives. • Use opportunity to give identity to the borough, logo, crest, colour, and shape – seek sponsorship. • Review the standards. (See Review of Street Lighting policy – see Street Lighting Report BVR Section 5 Evidence 3) • Publicise recent MORI & Conference findings. • Continuously review procurement methods.

4.0 Cleansing type issues and cross-cutting cleansing issues such as litter, abandoned vehicles, graffiti, enforcement issues and parking seemed to dominate the public mind throughout the review, all of the surveys and the Conference. All of these issues and others were perceived to be part of “Street Scene”. (See Cross Cutting report BVR Section 7 ‘4 C’s Reports & Conference report BVR appendix 5)

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Areas identified as most Action required to address these areas * pc in need of attention Litter and trade waste Recognised as a nation-wide problem not just LBBD. Second highest priority consistently throughout MORI polls Conference etc.

• Work schedules re arranged around ‘Forum Areas’. • Increased supervision. • More reactive response to hot spots. • Schedules tailored on an ‘as needs’ basis. • Purchase of 2 ‘Hoover’ type mobile footway vehicles. • Drive towards enforcement. • Provision of more litter bins • Collect refuse from the premises not from street. • Performance constantly reviewed and monitored with ‘mini satisfaction surveys’ • Extra cash redirected (£200,000 2000/2001). • Involve community leaders and provide skips for alleyway and garden clearance on regular basis- engender ‘ownership’ of the alleyway. • Consult with traders directly, use CCTV and enforce. • Check traders existing leases and renegotiate terms. • Make planning permission for fast food outlets conditional with regards to employing their own litter pickers. • Consult with fast food outlets and encourage them to sponsor ‘cleanups’.

Abandoned Vehicles Growing problem nationally. Likely to continue to grow until the “End of Life Vehicles Directive” becomes operational after 2006. Last year 5000 notifications in LBBD, this year over 8000 resulting in over 2000 disposals. Currently funded from the cleansing budget. (see MORI telephone Survey Recommendations BVR Section 5 Evidence 1 - See Abandoned vehicles report Evidence 3 see Abandoned vehicles procedures Policy Commission Agenda 15th March 200 BVR Section 8 )

• More streamlined procedure introduced cutting processing time. (has been improved from approx. 6 weeks to 3) • Process is labyrinthine minefield, needs urgent Central Government help. (Policy Commission to lobby). • More publicity for free ‘unwanted’ vehicle removal service. • Further discussion with other boroughs.

Areas identified as most Action required to address these areas * pc in need of attention Enforcement issues Major concern that council is not aggressive enough in tackling all areas

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of enforcement. Call for ‘Zero Tolerance’ Council wide, but it is not practical or economically possible. • Policy Commission reviewing and committed to enforcement. • Interdepartmental discussion group “Talk Team” set up to target scarce financial resource towards targeted selective enforcement. (£50,000 committed). Involves LBBD Legal department. • Extension of CCTV to contribute towards enforcement of Trade Waste abuse and other nuisance. • Parking being reviewed as part of ‘Street Safe’ year 2. Education – Civic MORI Telephone Survey shows residents tend not to lay most Pride - Culture change responsibility with the Council: parents and the wider community are seen as the most important in improving education and awareness.

The Council’s role should be to facilitate this as much as possible, and provide appropriate information and resources to schools and residents. (see BV Review Section 5 evidence 1) Recognised as a national problem requiring a long-term solution. • Consultation with Education department commenced. • Sponsorship of tidiness competitions. • Targeting of educational establishments for ‘involvement’ • Review of how to educate the parents. • Policy Commission to lobby Government • Introduce “Streets to be proud of” or similar campaign • Litter campaigns that draw comparisons with social acceptability of ‘drink driving’ or smoking • . Involve fast food outlets in sponsoring educational blitzes. • Use of LBBD web site. • Advertise on refuse sacks “Do not put out before day of collection” and other pertinent messages. Refuse collection & Whilst outside the scope of this Review, its evident that Street Cleansing ‘Wheelie Bins’ issues are dependent on methods and frequency of refuse collection. It has been the policy of the council not to use wheelie bins for domestic refuse and as a result much of the litter problem in residential areas can be attributed to broken bin liners. Developments with ELWA in the near future will have an impact on these two parameters especially as far as recycling is concerned. This cross cutting issue will be addressed fully within the year 2 Waste Management Review and could well impact on procurement of both Street Scene and cleansing services.

• In the interim Street Scene staff as well as inspectors to be the ‘eyes and ears’ of the borough and report persistent offenders for enforcement. • Policy commission to raise the issue with members.

Areas identified as in Action required to address these areas * pc most need of attention Parking Whilst this is to be covered in the Street safe review (year 2) and even though the area has one of Britain’s lowest car ownership levels, it

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represents a growing problem for street and footway cleansing. The council has a policy of encouraging as much off street parking as possible by offering reduced rate cross overs where kerbs are being re- laid, however the Housing and Health garage demolition programme would appear to run counter to the policy. • Greater enforcement of footway parking violations to prevent footway damage. • Strengthen footways where footway parking would be advantageous.

Communication & Apparent lack of communication sometimes conceals an underlying Bureaucracy. inability to move for example, ring fenced housing funding for crosscutting areas such as amenity green and verge maintenance where Street Scene would like effective control. Similarly there is a grey area between what Public Health can or should enforce and what Street Scene should enforce. As a result of the Public health review and the Street Scene review, both being first year reviews, common purpose and ground has been established as follows: -

• Establishment of “Talk Shop” to discuss common issues and share expenditure. • Optimise the use of current legislation for enforcement. • Shift of Dog Fouling responsibility to Street Scene. • Single policy for parking between Street Scene and Housing & Health. • Use of the Council Tax envelope to communicate. • Better use of the Citizen magazine • Use of LBBD web site • Financing pooled where possible. Urban Clutter • Review all street furniture and signs. • Rationalise where possible, make better use of existing street furniture. • Eliminate redundant street furniture.

(To be arranged as part of Street Scene and Street Safe Reviews)

Ensuring accessibility of service to all

Before the review some substantial inroads had been made throughout the Council to improve accessibility for example.

• Minority language publications.

• Access to the footway and highway by the mobility impaired.

• Provision of ‘reporting’ cards in libraries and public buildings.

Currently the whole customer care package for the newly set up Street Scene is being reviewed to give some form of 24-hour access to these services.

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Outcomes required for the service

• Cleaner streets.

• Better lit safer streets.

• The highways asset optimally maintained.

Turning aims into actions

• Restructuring the organisation to meet the needs of the service.

• Preparation of an Improvement plan as a framework for action.

• Scheduling resource to meet the objectives of the Improvement Plan

• Monitoring progress

• Reviewing and revising Plan.

National standards and targets

The Review team has constantly taken issue with the consistency of National performance indicators. Refinement of these is outside the scope of this review or this organisation. The objective of the Improvement Plan is therefore to satisfy and improve on the PI’s, which measure the three Street Scene services.

There are currently a number of National PI’s which are measured and updated monthly (see prints of PI Monitoring BVR Section 5 Evidence 3)

BVPI93 The cost of highway maintenance, per 100 km travelled by a vehicle on principal roads BVPI95 Average cost of maintaining street lights BVPI96 Condition of principal roads BVPI97 Condition of non-principal roads BVPI98 Percentage of street lamps not working as planned BVPI100 Number of days of temporary traffic controls or road closure on traffic sensitive roads caused by local authority road works per km of traffic sensitive road BVPI105 Damage to roads and pavements AC-F2a Percentage of links of footpaths and other rights of way which were signposted where they leave the road AC-F2b Percentage of total length of footpaths and other rights of way that were easy to use by members of the public

ACPI P2a The percentage of emergency repairs to roads carried out within 24 hours ACPI P2b The percentage of emergency repairs to pavements carried out within 24 hours

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ACPI3 Number of days major council roadworks were in place per mile of busy road. ACPI P4 The cost of highway maintenance, per 100 miles travelled by a vehicle BVPI 89 Percentage of customers satisfied with the service

Local targets /standards/performance indicators

There are currently 6 local performance indicators which are measured and updated monthly and these are being continuously developed (see prints of PI Monitoring BVR Section 5 Evidence 3)

LPI SS 1 Percentage of highways that are either of a high or acceptable standard of cleanliness LPI SS2 Average number of days taken to remove fly-tips LPI SS 3 Net spending per head of population on street cleaning LPI SS 4 Percentage of gullies cleaned at least once per year LPI SS 6 Percentage of links of footpaths and other rights of way which were sign-posted where they leave the road LPI SS 7 Percentage of people satisfied that the authority has met their duty to keep their relevant land and relevant highways for which the authority is responsible clear of litter and refuse. LPI Percentage of projects completed on time LPI Did the trading account break even - i.e. no surplus or deficit

How we aim to be within the top 25%

• Continuous monitoring and identification of under performing areas i.e. below 25% (already in place)

• Targeting of resources to improve performance.

• Continuous review of working methods, plant and equipment.

Monitoring performance

• A corporate Monitoring Review Team has been established to monitor performance.

• Returns are made monthly and fed into the monitoring system.

• Figures are then used to make comparisons with PI’s and neighbouring boroughs.

• Figures are set against an improvement/disimprovement baseline and show the month on month trend.

• Results are published on the Intranet

(see BVR section 5 evidence 3 and Intranet)

Linking the Improvement Plan for future service delivery to the corporate priorities

The Vision for the borough is enshrined in the corporate priorities as follows: -

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1. Promoting equal opportunities and celebrating diversity.

2. Better education and learning for all.

3. Developing rights and responsibilities with the local community.

4. Improving health, housing and social care.

5. Making Barking and Dagenham, cleaner, greener and safer.

6. Raising general pride in the Borough.

7. Regenerating the local economy.

The Improvement Plan goes a long way towards meeting priorities Nos 2 and 6 and to some extent No 3. Doubtless an improvement in the appearance of the borough would have a positive effect on No 5 and consequently indirectly on No 1.

Communicating the plan internally and to other stakeholders

• The Improvement Plan will be published and placed in public libraries.

• Copies will be issued to the Local press for analysis and publication.

• Likewise with the MORI surveys some of which have been published recently.

• Copies will be issued to the Forum Groups.

• Synopses of this and other best value reviews will be published:

• In the Citizen Magazine: • Published on the LBBD web site. • Published on the Intranet • The BV newsletter

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Appendix 3 Future Service Delivery - Option 1

Service Delivery Option

Restructuring of the in-house service and regular review of procurement optimised to meet major cross cutting service provision. This process was commenced in parallel with the Street Scene review.

Capability of meeting the needs of the Improvement Plan

The organisational structure of Street Scene has been tailored to meet the needs of delivering the improved service demanded by consultation with the end users of the service.

Other divisions and departments such as Civil Engineering, Traffic, Planned Highways Maintenance and Education share both the private and in-house contractors. Immediate disengagement from the five contracts affected in order to market test in whole or in part purely for Street Scene is not therefore a realistic possibility in the very short term.

Coupled with this corporate procurement policy at the time of writing has yet to be finalised and the strategy implemented. At the same time the Policy Commission has yet to report (May 2001) and the Executive legislate on its recommendations.

Providing a seamless part private/part in-house service that is improving does not foreclose any other procurement options to the authority that might arise in the short or medium term arising as year 2 and year 3 reviews are completed.

Meeting Council priorities

Providing a well lit, well maintained litter free highway infrastructure in the borough will, in itself, help to ‘Regenerate the local economy ~ generating jobs, training and enterprise resulting in the creation of better opportunities for all’. It contributes directly to making Barking and Dagenham a cleaner, greener and safer borough which must contribute to Improving health and social care in the Borough. Education of citizens and their engagement in consultation and Forums and consultation will help in developing rights and responsibilities with the community and in raising general pride in the Borough and projecting a positive image.

Meeting strategic priorities including:

• Sustainability

Corporately LBBD is re launching its Agenda 21 efforts and this will have a knock on effect for machinery, transport and the way in which work is approached.

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Under the Street Safe review and planned highway maintenance, recycling of road and footway materials is being reviewed to avoid landfill charges and reduce consumption of asphaltic materials. See BVR Partnering Appendix 6, 1 of 2)

• Equalities

The Council’s ‘Vision’ for equality and diversity can be summarised as: - • Maintain a discrimination-free work environment • Value and develop employee skills and abilities, regardless of gender, race, disability, age etc. • Deliver relevant, culturally sensitive and fully accessible services to all sections of the local community • Monitor and tackle inequality in service delivery • Consult, engage and be aware of the views of the whole community • Open and transparent contracting and procurement processes

In December 2000 Members agreed to employment targets being set in the field of Equal Opportunities in Employment. This action was taken in accordance with the requirements of the National Best Value Performance Indicators 2001/2002 and in line with the Council’s community priority – “Promoting Equal Opportunities and Celebrating Diversity”. The targets will also help us to start to achieve a workforce that is representative of our local community, as recommended by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report.

The targets that have been agreed are as follows:

INDICATOR TARGET The percentage of senior management posts filled by women 20% (which is JNC posts) The number of employees declaring that they meet the Disability Discrimination Act disability definition as a 3% percentage of the total workforce. Minority ethnic community employees as a percentage of the 5 - 6% total workforce.

The Civil Engineering industry is traditionally male orientated because of the very physical demands of the job, unsocial hours, and the migratory, all weather nature of the work.

Consequently whilst there has been no difficulty within Street Scene in meeting the ethnicity (currently 8%) or to a slightly lesser degree disabilities targets (currently 1.6)% there are difficulties in attracting women into the Civil Engineering industry. This means females in management positions in Engineering currently stands at only 1.6% and this figure is unlikely to rise quickly in the short term.

These difficulties are compounded by the lack of both male and female school leavers/graduates attracted to the profession and in particular to local government with its poor career and salary prospects.

As a corollary of the foregoing, in recent years the department has had extreme difficulties in recruiting suitably qualified engineering staff following more than a decade of salary restraint

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compounding to leave salaries completely out of step with private industry. It is now impossible to recruit Chartered Engineers or even Incorporated Engineers and the prospect is bleak for maintaining professional staff far less recruiting new staff.

To address the issues, the Improvement Plan will initiate and pilot innovative ways of recruitment by for example, holding local job fairs and involving community groups in finding ways of reaching potential employees from within the borough and from within those groups.

There will possibly be inertia to overcome in departing from recruiting in the traditional manner and using only the trade press and traditional journals, but the associated risk is negligible and the potential benefits are high in terms of ‘improving the business’.

• Local service strategy

Currently any remaining parts of the in house contract services are provided from Frizlands Depot located in Dagenham.

External providers of the service do use local labour and supervision in line with Council Strategy. Many in-house staff live within the borough or in other East London boroughs.

• Regeneration

Providing a well lit, well-maintained litter free highway infrastructure in the would almost certainly contribute towards regeneration of the local economy.

Similarly the forthcoming developments for the Thames Gateway area will place increasing demands on the highways and other borough infrastructure in the coming years so that Street Scene needs to dovetail its services to meet the rising challenge.

Financial implications including: -

• Results of business analysis

Without actually tendering the whole service in one hit, it is not possible to say that it would prove beneficial to externalise the whole service.

The implications for market testing the whole service would have knock on effects for other services currently under review or about to be reviewed because some of the service is already outsourced but is a shared external resource.

A lot of the service affecting Highways Maintenance and Street Lighting is outsourced and is therefore market tested regularly. At the same time the remaining in house former highways DLO has been reduced to a team of eight persons used strategically throughout the Forum areas.

The professional or ‘white collar’ side represents little more than an educated client or enabling function that operates at minimum levels.

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• Revenue and capital implications

The formation of Street Scene and the subsequent drive towards improving services especially cleansing services has led to a reprioritisation of revenue spending and this for the year 2000/2001 has been of the order of £200,000.

Whilst reorganisation of the division can achieve better management of certain services for example the cleansing service, clearly there will have to be additional revenue funding to achieve the standards of cleanliness and the degree of enforcement that the public demands.

Street Scene is therefore giving consideration to the amount of additional or rescheduled funding that will be required to meet these demands.

• Staffing costs

There were no additional staffing costs at the time of the creation of Street Scene.

There will be some additional staffing costs arising out of:

• The creation of the new Street Works Manager post and uplifts to key staff.

• Rescheduling of cleansing services that require additional overtime.

Counterbalancing this since the creation of Street Scene and the redeployment of highways DLO staff the numbers of staff has been reduced by four giving a net effective saving of £100,000 p.a.

• Sale of assets

Option 1 does not require the sale of assets at the current time.

It does require the purchase of appropriate Street Cleansing vehicles to operate a more efficient cleansing service including 2 suction cleansers and an additional gully sucker.

Conclusions

Option 1 leaves the regrouped Street Scene intact for the time being following recent changes, enabling the service to bed down before the imposition of any more changes.

The choice of option 1 does not foreclose any other procurement options that might arise out of current (year 2) BV reviews such as Street Safe and Waste management the results of which might have a dramatic effect on procurement of engineering and cleansing services.

It allows the continuation of dialogue with potential partners in the local government and private sector whilst retaining the existing term contractors currently shared by Civil Engineering, Planned Highways Maintenance, Traffic and to a degree Education (assets).

The Improvement Plan followed through for the next four years builds on the positive work undertaken during the review itself to create an integrated service. It sets realistic milestones to secure improvements to the service to be achieved over the remaining four years of the cycle.

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(See Improvement Plan programme and Matrix Summary – BVR Appendix 6 & Appendix 7)

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review April 2000 – March 2001

Appendix 4 Future Service Delivery - Option 2

Service Delivery Option

Formation of a public private partnership.

Within LBBD there is no in-house experience of this, however an initiative with the in-house Civil and surfacing term contractor has been successfully piloted within the Planned Highways Maintenance section. It has enabled the authority to negotiate a 6% reduction in rates for the year 2001/2002. However this arrangement can be little more than temporary as it does not appear to have a future in its own right without the arrangement being put out to tender in accordance with EU regulations.

Meanwhile another major contractor currently working with a major local authority and other government bodies has expressed interest and given a presentation on how it operates its agreement.

Views vary on engaging with contractors within the IAG benchmarking club from it being a ‘licence for the contractor to print money’ to it being and efficient procurement method. In fact the authority that felt that it was efficient, also felt that after the initial tender the resulting contract could be extended indefinitely by the client.

The team’s view was that partnering with a contractor doesn’t sit comfortably with the spending of public money. Any partnering it was felt would be better arranged with consultants rather than contractors or with other local authorities.

There are also conflicting experiences coming to light in the market place. You have the case where one London Borough partnered with a major contractor, externalising its entire engineering staff, and so acrimonious was the arrangement, that the technical services contract was retendered to introduce a partnering arrangement with a consultant managing a term contractor. This too has not worked well and a new ‘intelligent’ client is now being recruited to manage both.

Conversely another major council partnered with major consultants externalising its technical services first time around and was so unhappy with the result that it has now re-tendered to a major contractor under a partnering arrangement. So far the contractor is pleased with the arrangement.

Capability of meeting the needs of the Improvement Plan

The fact remains that currently there is not a robust partnership set up to handle Street Scene in its entirety.

Following the changes that have been made it is intended to pursue partnership as an alternative method of providing the services in whole or in part particularly with other

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local authorities. To kick start this we have joined a London wide benchmarking club for Highways Maintenance led by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham with a view to carrying this forward. Street Lighting has already partnered with ‘LASER’ resulting in savings in energy costs.

Partnering however needs to be done within the framework of the council’s emerging procurement strategy and is possibly kept as an option to be reviewed regularly in the light of this.

The policy for procurement is stated as:

“Barking and Dagenham Council will adopt an open mind as to how functions might be provided and by whom”

“In seeking Best Value for the local community we will identify and procure the method of service delivery which provides the highest standard of service, which can achieve continuous improvement at a cost which the Council is prepared to pay”

Clearly it is important to have audit and procurement control systems in place if initiative and innovation are to be encouraged.

Meeting Council priorities

Providing a well lit, well maintained litter free highway infrastructure in the borough will, in itself, help to ‘Regenerate the local economy ~ generating jobs, training and enterprise. resulting in the creation of better opportunities for all’. It contributes directly to making Barking and Dagenham a cleaner, greener and safer borough which must contribute to Improving health and social care in the Borough. Education of citizens and their engagement in consultation and Forums and consultation will help in developing rights and responsibilities with the community and in raising general pride in the Borough and projecting a positive image.

Meeting strategic priorities including:

• Sustainability

A public Private partnering arrangement would be unlikely to detract from the Agenda 21 issues nor the move towards recycling of highway materials. It would be more likely to lead to better use of recycling and more advanced highway materials.

The current partnering arrangement is with a company that has pioneered the recycling of glass into road making material.

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• Equalities

Any partnering contract would enshrine the ‘targets’ the council has set for itself. The council would also encourage the use of local labour wherever possible and our current term contractors are already aware of this. . • Local service strategy

In any partnering arrangement the Council would encourage the use of local labour wherever possible and our current term contractors are already aware of this and comply wherever possible.

• Regeneration

There would be no foreseeable problem arising from the introduction of a partnering arrangement.

Financial implications including

• Results of business analysis

Partnering arrangements have not been sufficiently developed within the Council so far, however negotiation of a pilot partnering scheme with the term Civil and Highways Maintenance contract have yielded 6% annual savings for the year 2001/2002.

• Revenue and capital implications

It would be premature to estimate what the revenue and capital implications are without a fixed partnering arrangement in mind.

• Staffing costs

Depending on the partnership arrangement being tendered rather than negotiated, staff might become employees of the partner under TUPE thereby alleviating the Council of those costs.

• Sale of assets

Because a partnering arrangement would have a finite life of a few years it would not be realistic to assume that the Council would for example sell the Frizlands depot complex. It would be more likely to lease it to the partnership for the duration of the partnership.

Depending upon the partner vehicles and equipment might be disposed of or leased to the partnership.

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Conclusions

If applied immediately, Option 2 would require another restructuring of the Street Scene services and would not be a realistic short-term total solution.

Taken over a period of time, however, it does represent a realistic procurement option that could be dovetailed and scheduled not only to Street Scene but also to Civil Engineering, Planned Highways Maintenance, Traffic and Education.

There is no reason why dialogue with potential partners cannot be undertaken as an ongoing process within option 1 with a view to incorporating such partnerships at the appropriate time and as opportunity allows during the ongoing BV reviews.

There are however, several options within possible partnering arrangements and these still have to be evaluated as an ongoing process enshrined in the Improvement Plan.

The Improvement Plan during the next four years can build on the pilot work undertaken during the review itself with regard to partnering. Doubtless there are opportunities for innovative partnering such as the existing one which has yielded tangible financial benefits for the Council.

(See Improvement Plan programme and Matrix Summary – BVR Section 5 Evidence 3)

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Appendix 5 Future Service Delivery - Option 3

Joint commissioning or delivery of the service.

Within LBBD there is little in-house experience of this, however an initiative with Housing and Health has been set up involving the local health authority working in a more ‘joined up way’.

The LASER initiative has also been set up with Street Lighting that has resulted in energy cost savings.

The process is however, in its infancy and requires sustained development effort if it is to be considered as a realistic procurement option.

Service Delivery Option

Within LBBD there is only a little in-house experience of this and it is an unlikely immediate or short-term contender for procurement options for the service.

In the longer term it offers a local government friendly solution to procurement of local services.

Capability of meeting the needs of the Improvement Plan

Because so little work has been done on this method of procurement and service delivery, in the current four-year cycle of the Improvement Plan it is not a realistic short-term solution.

Meeting Council priorities

Doubtless other authorities have similar priorities, however LBBD priorities in such a procurement arrangement would have to co-exist with partner’s priorities.

Political change in another authority might well colour priorities. Similarly financial cuts made by another authority could well have an impact on the viability and delivery of the service in LBBD in future years. Choice of partners would therefore be critical.

For Street Scene operational purposed choices of partner would need to be geographic rather than statistical neighbours.

Meeting strategic priorities including:

• Sustainability

There is no reason why joint commissioning of services should affect sustainability issues.

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• Equalities

There would be no reason why equalities issues could not be addressed in such a procurement option. In fact it might be easier to reach targets because of the wider pool of human resource.

• Local service strategy

It would be critical to Street Scene type services especially reactive maintenance, emergency services and winter gritting that the partnership was with neighbouring boroughs that could share resource and remain physically close to the combined territories.

• Regeneration

Such partnerships should have no effect on regeneration issues.

Financial implications including: -

• Results of business analysis

The Council, other than achieving better purchasing power for electricity has not developed this option in any significant way yet.

• Revenue and capital implications

There are revenue and capital savings which could be made from a suitable well run and efficiently managed partnering arrangement with neighbours. Never the less, there could be equally adverse and politically unacceptable implications if it was not well run and efficiently managed.

• Staffing costs

Clearly there are savings that could be made in terms of use of human resources in an efficiently run jointly commissioned service.

• Sale of assets

Similarly there are possibly substantial savings that could be made in terms of use of plant and depot premises in an efficiently run jointly commissioned service.

Conclusions

As with Option 2 if applied immediately, it would require another restructuring of the Street Scene services and would not be a realistic or achievable short-term total solution.

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Taken over a period of time, however, it does represent a realistic procurement option that could easily satisfy Street Scene needs. There are some doubts as to whether it could be dovetailed to Civil Engineering, Planned Highways Maintenance, Traffic and Education’s needs.

It would have implications for waste management and this would have to be reviewed at the end of year 2.

There is no reason why dialogue with adjacent boroughs cannot be undertaken as an ongoing process within option 1 with a view to incorporating such partnerships at the appropriate time, and as opportunity allows during the ongoing BV reviews. This has been incorporated in the Improvement Plan programme.

(See Improvement Plan programme and Matrix Summary – BVR Section 5 Evidence 3)

Street Scene final report 31/03/01 Appendix 6 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Street Scene Best Value Review Improvement Matrix 2001 - 2005

Improvement Outcome Action required Time scale Monitoring Resource Lead Required arrangements requirements

Improve PI figures Achieve top 25% Resources, Within 1 year Street Scene Additional 2 fte JP PB Supervision PI Monitoring team supervisors Blitzes TMT New cleansing Enforcement vehicles £100,000 Address Eliminate dumped Consultation, 50% within 1 year Street Scene Additional resource JP PB enforcement issues trade waste Persuasion, remainder by year 2 1 fte Vigilance CCTV, £35,000 p.a. * pc Enforcement. Contribute to better Long term social Consultation with Twenty years but Street Scene Time outside of JP PB Education education awareness, Education in introduce TMT core curriculum Department, responsibility and schools & colleges Short (1 year) Education 1 fte plus video Schools, Colleges, * pc acceptability Government Medium (2 – 4year) Transport providers equipment. esp. Government. program & Long term £35,000 p.a. Parents. Slogans strategies Clean ups Awareness Educate parents Celebrate success Link with recycling Exchanges with Switzerland – Sweden - Singapore Address Key issues: Street Scene JP PB G Mc • abandoned cars • Streamline get CAP Gemini link Introduced TMT Problem growing * pc gov’t support Publicise ‘unwanted May 2001 100% p.a. vehicles’ service. Increasing human • dog fouling • Prosecute Joint initiatives April – October resource 1 fte * pc offenders Police & Housing 2001 Increased funding health – ‘Talk Shop’ Currently £100,000

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Improvement Outcome Action required Time scale Monitoring Resource Lead Required arrangements requirements

CCTV 2001 – 2003 p.a. Resource hungry ML IS • general litter • Reduce by 50% Match to forums Mar 2001 ongoing labyrinthine process in 4 years. As needs service * pc Wheelie bins 2002/2003 £2.5 m issue of bins Supervision to be decided plus equipment conversion. • pavement Increase satisfaction UKPMS system DLES traffic & maintenance in levels by 10% in 4 Better targeting 2001 highways residential areas years Planned * pc Maintenance 2001 – 2005 New materials & recycling 2001 - 2005 Address EFQM TMT GF JK JP PB issues. DLES • Leadership • Credible Competencies 2000 –2002 Street Scene leadership Cabinet style

• Policy & • Written Policy Commission 2000 – 2001 Strategy cohesive policy * pc • People • Equal Training 2001 – 2005 Street Scene £50,000 JP Management opportunity, Communication 2001 – 2005 £75,000 Diversity, Job Evaluation 2001 – 2005 £100,000 JP Job fairs, involve involvement, reward community groups 2001 - 2005 Street Scene TMT, Personnel’ Prepare annual four March 2001 – 2005 DLES

year resource plan

• Resources • Robust Move to 100% QA * pc deliverable environment Street Scene £100,000

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Improvement Outcome Action required Time scale Monitoring Resource Lead Required arrangements requirements

resource Plans Review processes 2001 – 2003 Use any ongoing • Processes • Complete LBBD MORI polls 2001 – 2005 review Mini polls. TMT £10,000 JP PB • Regular, As they arise 2001 - SS monitored, part Delegate more 2005 responsibility TMT £500 pa • Customer of culture Rotate staff 6 monthly SS Satisfaction • Ownership, Improve IT MORI polls 2001 – 2005 multiskill, communication Mini-polls see above • People • Regular Conference 2001 - 2005 £5,000 - £10,000 satisfaction consultation Forums 2001 – 2003

Council’s As they arise

priorities Business Plan 2003 - 2004 • Impact on bi-monthly society • Savings annual review Annually

• Business results Evaluate and use TMT GF JP PB ML TB feedback from 2nd Street Scene year reviews X Street Safe cutting issues: Waste Management • Waste • Decisions on Decide methods 2002 –2003 Procurement To be estimated in management strategic Decide frequencies April –2002 the light of cleansing Outsource? 2002 – 2005 decisions procurement Recycling issues 2002 – 2005 issues Wheelie bins 2002 – 2003

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Improvement Outcome Action required Time scale Monitoring Resource Lead Required arrangements requirements

• Planned • Decisions on Decide types of April – 2002 To be estimated in maintenance shared external contract, frequency the light of resources of renewal, decisions * pc procurement partnering issues. decided

• Parking • Decisions on ‘on street’, ‘off Footway April – 2002 street’, footway strengthening, ML GE (2nd year parking, reduced rate cross review) enforcement overs 2001 – 2005 More enforcement £150,000 p.a.

£35,000 p.a. Improvement: TMT GF JP PB • communication • Fast effective Improved IT Implemented IT See above internal & Training 2001 – 2005 Street Scene external Talk Shops Implemented communication Forums Implemented Consultation 2001 – 2005

reduction • One stop shop – Introduce 24 hour June – 2001 Street Scene £5,000 JP PB • Bureaucracy. one phone call information & pc • * does it. reporting service

Continuous review TMT GF JP PB & monitoring. Street Scene

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Improvement Outcome Action required Time scale Monitoring Resource Lead Required arrangements requirements

• Challenge • Regular Set up core BV April 2001 Procurement Nominal challenge part review team within of operational Street Scene process • Consultation • Ditto Organise regular 2001 – 2005 See above Consultation consultation • Ditto benchmarking April - 2002 £2,000 p.a. • Benchmarking More effective • Review Annually 2001 – benchmarking fees Open minded • procurement procurement 2005 staff time Procurement regularly.

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Appendix 7

Improvement Programme

2001 - 2005

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Appendix 8

Street Scene

Summary of the

Findings and Recommendations

of the

Policy Commission Report

May 2001

(for full text see Street Scene Evidence File 3)

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Findings and Recommendations

As a result of their consideration of the Policy Commission are recommending that the Assembly adopt the following principles and policy for the Borough.

5.1 Working Arrangements

(i) Single Framework

There should be a move towards a single framework to cover all Street Scene functions.

(ii) Central Budget

There should be a centrally managed budget for Street Scene issues.

(iii) One Stop-Shop approach

The standard of the contact with the public should be improved and there should be a move towards a single point of contact (one stop-shop) for those living and working in the Borough to access all Street Scene services.

(iv) Matching Community Forum Areas

There should be a matching of Street Scene and all other operational services with Community Forum Areas to provide coterminous boundaries of service.

5.2 Enforcement

Emphasis should be placed on enforcement under the existing Regulations, as well as the Council initiating or supporting changes in legislation to improve its enforcement ability. Enforcement should be rigorous, whilst still being fair and proportionate to the incident.

5.3 Inter-departmental Working / Innovative Approaches / Multitasking

There needs to be more inter-departmental working to increase the range of options available for improving the Street Scene. Innovative pilot schemes that engender inter-departmental working should be encouraged and supported.

5.4 Education and publicity

(i) Education

Education is the foundation stone for improving Street Scene in the future. Effort should be made to educate the public, especially children, about the effects and costs of their actions.

(ii) Publicity

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Positive publicity should be undertaken to encourage local residents and businesses to accept their responsibilities in preventing the deterioration of the Street Scene in the first place. Publicity should be available in languages other than English as well us other formats.

5.5 Abandoned Vehicles

The Council will use its powers where available to remove abandoned vehicles from Private Property, if the landowner fails to undertake the work for themselves.

A vehicle value threshold is set, and that way any abandoned vehicle on public land/highway, which is believed to fall below that threshold, can be removed immediately. With this regard the limit should be set at £500 (rising each year with inflation).

The Council will make all efforts to work in partnership with DVLA and the Metropolitan Police to deal swiftly with untaxed and abandoned vehicles on the Borough roads.

Initiate and support changes in legislation that will enable local authorities to charge the last registered keeper for the disposal of abandoned vehicles.

5.6 Public Highways

Legal action should be used where necessary to ensure that Statutory Undertakers meet their obligations under the New Roads and Streetworks Act 1990.

5.7 Design Standards

The Council should produce a Design Manual for public highways and other public areas with a view to reducing social exclusion and make the Borough a safe place for all to travel through as well as improving the general environment.

5.8 Urban Clutter

A comprehensive Asset Register for street furniture should be drawn up together with design standards which aim to lend character to an area and affords a greater level of safety to the general public. Whilst ensuring that street furniture fulfils its practical functions the visual and physical impact of street furniture should be kept to a minimum.

5.9 Street Lighting

The Council should provide good quality lighting. Improvements to lighting should be continued across the Borough for the purposes of safety for all, reduction in crime and improved road safety. Maintenance regimes need to be such that lighting levels are kept high.

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5.10 Refuse Collection and Street Cleansing

To meet the public’s expectations of good quality refuse collection and street cleansing there should be a more pro-active approach, including trials of different methods, equipment and cleansing patterns, subject to the requirements of the East London Waste Authority.

6 Financial Implications

Policy Commissions by their very nature will suggest standards that, if accepted, will require major improvements including budgeting provision. Although there is some scope to meet demands by efficiency savings and innovation, it is accepted that major step changes to these front line services will require major investment. Any increase in resources being funded by new monies or at the expense of other services.

The Commission recommends that Street Scene be recognised as a “core service” in future funding considerations. Street Scene does not only have a major impact on the lives of residents, but it is also influential in making the Borough’s reputation and economic well being.

It is essential that there is continuing drive to improve the services, with the aim of achieving a top 25% quartile rating for all the relevant national and local performance indicators.

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Appendix 9

Summary of Actions

1st April – October 31st 2001

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In the period from the end of the review a number of initiatives have been undertaken that form part of the Improvement Plan.

1.0 Sponsorship Sponsorship deals have been agreed using the company ‘Intermediate Solutions’ for sponsorship of roundabouts

Now working with them on sponsorship for: - 1.1 Grass Verges 1.2 Litter Bins 1.3 Vehicles 2.0 Teamwork 2.1 Introduction of flexible teams that are more responsive and are trained to take note of and deal with other problems near the site in hand.

3.0 Inspection 3.1 Inspection teams now have a wider remit that includes issuing the first notification on abandoned vehicles thereby speeding up the process.

4.0 Abandoned Vehicles 4.1 New streamlined policy on abandoned vehicles has been introduced and AV team increased. Over £100 k spent in this area.

4.2 Now operate a better publicised surrendered vehicles scheme that yields over 100 vehicles per month and reduces the number of abandoned vehicles by a similar figure.

4.3 There has been a blitz on untaxed vehicles and this has contributed to more responsible ownership and forced owners to ‘salvage’ their vehicle rather than abandon them. 5.0 Bulk Collection 5.1 Another vehicle & full team mobilised for ‘bulk’ collections. Cost £70 k. Response time down from 10 to 5 days.

6.0 Customer Care 6.1 Customer response rates being reviewed in the light of consultation exercises. This is linked with: - 6.11 Review of IT systems 6.12 24 hour answering service 6.13 LBBD web site 6.14 Performance Indicators

7.0 New Initiatives: - 7.1 Enforcement Litter Enforcement Project – Interdepartmental - will run 6 months from Sept 2001 to March 2002 (See scoping document). Aimed at identifying best ways and means of getting seamless enforcement on everything from litter,

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flytipping, dog fouling graffiti etc. There will be a dedicated enforcement phone line and enforcement teams.

Note: A timber contractor was recently fined £3,000 for flytipping at Choats Road) 7.2 Highways/Housing Land Joint Project Plan with Housing to meet the requirements of the Street Scene Policy Report for a seamless service. The plan will include mapping Public and Housing Landlord space, accountability, and standards, options will be costed for budget consideration in financial year 2002/2003.

7.3 Bids There have been successful one off bids for: - 7.31 Footway maintenance £120k 7.32 Street Name plates £100k 7.33 Lamp Column doors £100k 7.44 Gum removal £50k 7.55 Town centre management £40k

7.4 Growth bids 7.41Growth bids are being submitted valued at £300k based on members’ priorities for next financial year.

7.5

7.51 Purchase of special highway /footway cleansing machinery (vac) (£25k )

8.0 Procurement options and competition 8.1 Consultation has commenced with a major contractor for partnering highways works. The contractor already has a successful partnering arrangement with one of the London Authorities. 8.2 Procurement of street lighting services is 95% externalised and no change is foreseen. 8.3 Street cleansing services will be reviewed mid 2002 as part of the ongoing revue of best value and when the full ‘seamless’ service is operational. 9.0 Performance Indicators 9.1 Performance Indicators will be reviewed monthly rather than quarterly so as to take immediate corrective action. 9.2 All processes and procedures are being reviewed so as to give better- evidenced audit trails.

10.0Consultation and Benchmarking 10.1 Dialogue with other boroughs is ongoing. 10.2 LBBD contributes to the NE London Street Cleansing Group. 10.3 LBBD is monitoring progress within beacon councils such as Hampshire.

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11.0 Education 11.1 Joint consultation with Education Department has been requested. 11.2 Head Teachers have been contacted on a case by case basis over littering problems outside of schools.

12.0 CCTV 12.1 CCTV is being extended.

13.0 Graffiti

13.1 Graffiti team set up 13.2 Highway graffiti regularly removed. 13.3 Move to force utility companies to remove graffiti as ‘unauthorised advertising’ 13.4 Possibility of offering graffiti removal service to the private sector.

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