Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Finance, Property and Transformation

Forward Plan Ref: Ref: 2025/132

Contact: Vic Kurzeja, Director of Property and Assets

Vic.Kurzeja@oxfordshire.gov.uk

Report by Director of Property and Assets

The information contained in the annex is exempt in that it falls within the following prescribed categories:

Paragraph 3 – Information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person including the local authority

Paragraph 5 – Information in respect of which a claim to legal professional privilege could be maintained in legal proceedings.

and since it is considered that, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information, in that there is an expectation that consultation and negotiation should take place primarily away from the glare of publicity and public scrutiny in keeping with employment law.

The Head of Property Operations presented the report and referred to the proposed outsourcing of residual cleaning for County Council properties. The Chair stated that a portion of the Council’s contracts had been outsourced to a third-party provider, which was subsequently reviewed by the Scrutiny Committee. The Committee expressed concerns regarding staff transitions between contracts. In response, the officer assured the Chair that all current employees would maintain their positions under this recommendation; and furthermore, the Council would require the provider to uphold the existing contractual terms and conditions, including the preservation of pension benefits. The Chair expressed support for a cleaning service that was more efficient and lower in cost, if staff welfare was maintained, and approved the recommendation.

The Head of Property Operations also presented the section on proposed changes to the school catering service. The Chair said that he had three options, which were, to do nothing, to transfer to all schools the responsibility of delivering their own catering, or to recommend that the Council found its own catering partner. He said that to do nothing was not feasible as the existing service was operating at a loss and that the second option was impractical because some schools did not have the capacity to interact with a third party. In relation to finding a catering partner to take on the existing service, he said that that the proposals had been considered by the Schools’ Forum and the Scrutiny Committee, who had concerns around food quality and, again, current staff. The officer informed the Chair that the Council would require all partners to provide food meeting Department for Education guidelines and would comply with appropriate staff welfare measures. The Chair acknowledged that the decision was challenging; however, he ultimately endorsed the recommendation.

RESOLVED to:

a)    proceed with a procurement exercise to identify a suitable commercial provider to deliver catering services via a direct service contract with each school to replace the existing service level agreements with the school meals service; and

b)    commence a tender exercise in line with OCC Contract Procedure Rules and the relevant procurement legislation to outsource the remaining in-house cleaning of corporate sites.