Minutes:
The motion was moved by Councillor Williams and seconded by Councillor Dean.
The Labour amendment as set out in agenda item 25 of Supplementary Agenda 4 was moved by Councillor Allison and seconded by Councillor Brunt.
The Labour amendment was put to a vote and was carried – votes in favour: 32, votes against: 19, abstentions: 4.
The substantive motion (as amended) was then put to a vote and was carried – votes in favour: 32, votes against: 19, abstentions: 4.
RESOLVED:
This Council recognises that at a time of significant government cuts to council budgets and of constrained public spending which has seen local authorities lose at least 40% of their funding from central government, it is inevitable that there will be a reduction in local services as innovation alone cannot fill this massive gap in funding. However it is more important than ever that local authorities should innovate to try to mitigate some of the impact of these government cuts. This is one way they can reduce costs and generate additional income whilst continuing to deliver quality frontline services at a price their residents can afford, although it is acknowledged that the scale of the government’s cuts mean that reductions to some services cannot be avoided without increased investment from central government.
This Council is therefore concerned that Merton should innovate successfully in order to save money or generate income and is proud that the recent Annual Residents survey found that a record number of residents said Merton was an efficient and well run council. Our successes in this regard include:
· An innovative four borough waste contract with Conservative Kingston, Liberal Democrat Richmond and Labour Croydon to save Merton in the region of £48m over the lifetime of the contract
· Successfully sharing our legal service and our regulatory services, along with a number of other services, in order to save money whilst also increasing resilience.
· Successfully running a profit making company, CHAS, with dividends ploughed back into council services.
· One of the most efficient library services in London with some of the highest usage levels and customer satisfaction.
· Establishing a property company, Merantun, to maximise the councils’ assets to the benefit of council tax payers rather than big developers.
· Contributing to around £1m in savings so far, with more to come, partly linked to implementing a new website that has moved around 200 different sets of transactions online, with up to 70% of service requests now through the website and connecting our website and call centre to back office systems so that we reduce manual handling of requests, customers’ requests get referred to the right operative quickly and they can receive better updates on progress.
However, there will always be examples where we could have achieved more and sooner had we had more resources (invest to save), more staff or more expertise and some such attempts have been challenging leading in some cases, although often temporarily, to reduced customer satisfaction and increased costs for council taxpayers in the short term, including:
· Lengthy and ongoing delays by the external provider to the Customer Contact Programme have meant considerable potential savings have still not been realised, although at least £1m has already been delivered with further savings estimated on full roll out;
· The new waste management and street cleaning contract signed with Veolia and three other boroughs at a net cost of £298,000, but delivering over £2m per annum in savings for Merton alone, initially reported reduced services for some residents and a large increase in complaints and service requests received by the council about the state of local streets and town centres, however we are working hard with Veolia to ensure they deliver the performance standards expected and the implementation of a wheeled bin solution in 2018 will help reduce litter on the streets still further, with Keep Britain Tidy finding that up to 50% of litter on our streets was due to black sacks and open boxes;
· On track for an autumn 2018 opening, despite delays to the new leisure centre in Morden and currently renegotiating a contract with GLL so that Merton taxpayers will benefit from the uplift in revenue and value of this new asset - the increased revenue benefit from this contract is in the draft council budget estimated at £300k per annum;
· Pursuing a much anticipated new secondary school for South Wimbledon, at a significantly reduced cost to the council due to c£35m we have successfully secured from government, and made possible by a sometimes controversial land swap with the Elim Church which is based on compulsory purchase principles and independent valuation advice and supported by government; although it has meant the loss of Merton Hall from full time community use, this is an important asset of considerable heritage, community and monetary value which will still be available for community use outside of the times it is used by the church, the Wimbledon Foodbank and other services the church delivers; and
· Understandable difficulties in maximising ongoing revenue from the P4 site through alternative models put forward by the Conservative group that would have involved the council speculatively investing £50m in the site with no confirmed tenant and in the context of the Conservative government’s botched Brexit negotiations that have already impacted on London’s commercial property market. This was a model that was clearly reckless and irresponsible and this administration will instead focus on viable, affordable and realistic solutions that would help better deliver what residents wish to see at this location whilst potentially providing an ongoing revenue stream to the council, despite the challenges of the government’s failure to allay market fears in relation to Brexit.
This Council notes the significant savings the council has delivered since 2010 through innovation and increased efficiency but regrets that more savings will be required in future years due to the government’s austerity agenda and that this persistent failure by government to invest in local services hampers our ability to innovate successfully and is costing the borough significant amounts of money and therefore requests that the Chief Executive undertake a comprehensive review of Merton’s performance in this regard in order to identify any systemic weaknesses within the organisation and to bring forward recommendations for improvement to Members for consideration through the Scrutiny process.
Supporting documents: