Agenda item

Report DRR 18/044

The Committee considered a report providing information on the performance of the Total Facilities Management (TFM) Contract provided by Amey Community Limited and their sub-contractor Cushman and Wakefield for the period 1^st August 2017 to 31^st August 2018. A report from the Amey Account Manager provided his update on each of the individual performance elements of the contract and was attached at Appendix 1 to the report.

Darren Nolan and Mark Billington of Amey attended the meeting to respond to questions.  Members noted that the contract had now been in place for some time and questioned whether Amey had experienced any surprises in delivering the contract.  In response Mr Nolan confirmed that there had been no surprises.  Amey had been clear in terms of what they were taking on and had been aware of the age of the stock.  Fire Risk Assessments had not originally been part of the contract but these had recently been undertaken.  One of the nice surprises had been some of the new projects that Amey had taken on.  In response to a question from the Vice-Chairman, the Head of Asset and Investment Management confirmed that the outcome of the Fire Risk Assessments had been shared with the Council’s insurance advisors and would be reported back to the Council’s Risk Management Group.

In response to a question, Mr Nolan confirmed that approximately 50% of the increase in maintenance requests resulted from proactive action from Amey in terms of self-reporting tasks.  The other 50% was due to more widely known issues relating to the age of the stock.  In relation to the hard and soft KPIs, Mr Nolan confirmed that the difference in the performance correlated with a difference in the volume of tasks associated with the KPIs.

In response to a question, Mr Nolan confirmed that Amey did experience challenges in retaining certain staff such as cleaning staff.  Amey operated reward and recognition schemes but often if staff could move elsewhere for higher remuneration they would.

In response to a question from the Vice-Chairman, Mr Nolan confirmed that there had been no planned testing of the businesses continuity plans but there had been two unplanned power outages which had invoked the business continuity plans.  The Vice-Chairman stressed the importance of testing businesses continuity plans.

Members discussed the timescales included within the Service Level Agreement and how priorities were assigned to individual tasks.  The Chairman suggested that where a specific task did not naturally fit into the established categories it should automatically be assigned Priority One.

The Chairman thanked Amey for the work that had been undertaken around asbestos and water hygiene which had led to significant improvements.  It was however noted that there were a number of maintenance issues that still required attention such as broken toilet seats within the St Blaise building, broken lights, and incorrect clocks.  Mr Nolan reported that Amey were currently costing improvements to public areas and this included the installation of LED lighting.

The Committee discussed the recent incident concerning the Member of the public who had brandished a meat cleaver outside of the front entrance to the Civic Centre.  Mr Nolan explained the circumstances of the incident and that a member of LBB staff had noticed and reported the individual.  The gentlemen had been guided off site by security staff and CCTV images of the gentleman had been circulated amongst key staff to increase awareness.  Stressing that the safety of Council staff on site was paramount, Members queried whether any follow up action such as a criminal conviction or an exclusion order had been sought in order to protect staff.  The Chief Executive confirmed that further enquires would be made to the Police and Health Services in terms of follow up action.  The Committee thanked the security staff for their professional and sensitive handling of the situation. 

The Chairman circulated the confidential (exempt from publication) minutes of the Service Board.  The Committee requested that the minutes be included as an appendix in future reports.