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.