Agenda item

An overview was received on the Streetcare and Engineering and Transport draft budget proposals 2021/2022, as detailed in the circulated report.

Members were informed that there were no proposed cuts in budgets for the Streetcare or Transport and Engineering divisions in 2021/22.

The report captured that there was a budget pressure of £400k on Waste Services; Officers provided detail on the particular pressures which included:

·        A reduction in the Sustainable Waste Grant of £1million across Wales; this reduction had been ongoing for the last few years, and based on Neath Port Talbot Councils share of the money, there was a pressure of £45k in respect of this cut;

·        The need to retender the management contract for the Household Waste and Recycling Centres; the contract had been in place for some time, and the costs will be increasing above inflation in terms of ‘catching up’, following fixed increases over the life of the contract, along with increased costs associated with maximising recycling and composting. The report detailed that £250k had been allocated in this regard;

·        There was a further general shortfall in the waste management budget arising from a lasting national reduction in incomes for most recyclate materials to which £105K had been allocated.

In regards to Highways and Streetcare, it was noted that a budget pressure of £350K was identified which made allowances for the following:

·        Trade waste income had been affected by the outbreak of Covid-19 and whilst a lot of the reduction was going to be temporary and will bounce back in due course, some overall decrease was likely to be permanent; it was expected, as a minimum, that the normal inflationary uplift on the trade waste income budget will be unachievable resulting in a pressure, therefore £13k had been allocated for this;

·        The provision of recycling services and participation had expanded and there had been a growing demand for ongoing additional household recycling equipment and associated deliveries; £36K was allocated to resource additional deliveries, which included an additional member of staff and an extra van to make those deliveries;

·        The revenue works budgets for road and footway pavement maintenance needed increasing for ad-hoc and general repairs, in which £88k had been allocated; an inflationary increase was built into the budget which would cover resources such as staffing, however extra budget was needed for certain materials as the prices of these materials increase significantly more than the inflationary increase;

·        Road marking renewal budget needed increasing to facilitate a five-yearly renewal programme, following a detailed analysis on the assets; if the Council wanted to facilitate this programme across the County Borough then the budget needed to be enhanced by £30k to accommodate that;

·        Officers identified that there were some large countryside structures, old viaducts for example, which were not adopted by highways and had previously fallen outside of the regular periodic inspection regime; this needed to be corrected, therefore £20k had been allocated for this;

·        There was a need for an additional drainage minor works gang to help address the numerous minor drainage issues, backlog of issues and associated service demands, involving blocked and broken drains etc. It was stated that flooding was a high profile issue of significant concern to the public, local Members and the Council, especially given the rising number of flood events and associated damage across the county borough;

·        An additional budget of £10k had been allocated for extra sand bags and standby costs to facilitate extra support for areas where there were hot spots.

In relation to Port Talbot Town Centre, an additional pressure was noted to be included in order to manage the daily raising and lowering of the bollards to stop vehicles indiscriminately accessing the pedestrianised zone of the town centre; a security firm would be hired to operate the bollards all year round, in the morning and the afternoon.

It was highlighted that there was a pressure associated with Port Talbot Bus Station, which was allocated to the Estates Department; the pressure was linked to the ongoing costs associated with Port Talbot Bus Station and the WC facilities and their relationship with the bus operators around the charges for the use of the station.

Members were informed that car parking income had been severely affected by the pandemic and footfall had also reduced in the Town Centres; this was reflected in the budget pressure for this coming year. Officers hoped, with the roll out of the vaccine, that the situation will improve but nevertheless it was anticipated that income streams will continue to be affected in this service area during 2021/22.

It was noted that the Chancellor had previously announced that the entitlement to use red diesel will end from 2022; the Council had a number of Streetcare vehicles as well as other pieces of machinery which used red diesel, therefore this will have a knock on effect and a pressure of £48k. It was added that the Council would not be recovering the fuel duty costs in future due to this.

The Committee was informed of some of the budget pressures proposed to be met from specific reserves:

·        Additional resources in procurement – Streetcare services and other services monitored by the Streetscene and Engineering Scrutiny Committee will be one of the beneficiaries of the additional resources in procurement; as the service areas require a lot of support from the Council’s Procurement Section, which currently had limited resources. On example provided was the insourcing of the Transfer Station at Crymlyn Burrows; there were a number of contracts that needed to be migrated over into the Councils processes and procedures;

·        The pilot of Absorbent Hygiene Product collections – the pilot collection were due to be introduced later this year and pending the delivery of the vehicles, which were currently on order; the funding will help with the roll out of this process;

·        One-off waste composition survey – the Councils Waste Strategy was programmed for a review in 2022 to ensure that the Council was on track to deliver the 70% target in 2024/25; as part of this, Officers were intending to do another composition survey and look at participation as well if possible, in order to provide more information to Members  as part of the deliberations in the review process;

·        Highway IT Costs – this was noted to be a one off cost for the Councils Highways Development Control Section; it was associated with the new functions for the Sustainable Drainage Approval Body (SAB) linked with new development, to purchase software models to enable enforcement, appeals and inspections as part of the councils iDox system.

The circulated report detailed the two corporate income generation strategies which may have implication for services overseen by the Streetscene and Engineering Scrutiny Committee; one of which was that there will be impacts on the telephone calls at the Call Centre for example, residents calling to access Streetcare and Parking Services. The second point highlighted was the pressures around advertisement and sponsorship; the Environment Department will be involved with the corporate working group on income generation, however specifically for the Department it will be in connection with highway assets and where income could be contributed and/or generated going forward.

Members raised their concerns in relation to the amount of food waste bins that get damaged and that if this issue was looked into further, money could be saved as they would not need to be replaced. Officers mentioned that last year, 600 tonnes more food waste was picked up as more people were recycling and more food waste was being generated; there was a higher participating in recycling food waste and residents were requiring two bins instead of one due to the quantities. It was noted that these factors, along with the issue with service expansion, all contributed towards the Members concerns. Officers also recognised that there had been some issues with breakages, and were looking at the design of the food waste bins to make them more robust. It was added that supervisors try to ensure that their staff were as diligent as they could be, in terms of putting the bins back carefully.

In relation to the bollard management at Port Talbot Town Centre, Members questioned the need for bollards in Station Road as this street could be accessed through the security barrier next to Port Talbot Civic Centre. Members also asked if this work could be carried out via a grant to the Business Improvement District (BID) rather than contracting a security company. Officers explained that there needed to be a means of emergency access and exit should there be an incident in the Town Centre when the bollards were raised, which is why the area next to Port Talbot Civic Centre would be left without bollards. It was stated that a formal quotation had been received from the security firm which managed the bollards at Neath Town Centre; the quote referred to the costs per annum and there was a need for repairs to be completed on existing bollards.

Members asked what work had been done to assure the Committee that the budget figures for the service areas were accurately forecasted. Officers explained that formal estimates had been completed based on knowledge, however this year a lot of the estimates were based on what had been experienced through the pandemic. In relation to the car parking budget, it was highlighted that Officers had analysed this with the Director of Finance and accountants, and found that it was very difficult to gauge the uptake going forward, however there were hopes that situations would change as Spring/Summer approaches; there were still some concerns around the recovery of parking income and it would be monitored very carefully in the future. It was added that Aberavon Sea Front had surprisingly generated more money this year as people had been travelling to exercise locally. In terms of the Streetcare area, it was noted that a lot of the items were accurately calculable, for example Officers knew the costs for the vehicles and the teams; there were some elements that were variable, for example the income for recyclate materials, in which Officers had to look back at historical data and trends to make an estimate. It was added that there will be fluctuation throughout the year which would be dealt with within the contingencies of the budget.

Following Scrutiny of the budget details contained within the report, Members were reminded that their comments from this meeting would form part of the formal consultation response for the budget 2021/22. They were asked that if they had any other proposals for budget savings, not included within the attached report, that they approach Officers for their consideration.