To recommend approval of the insourcing of the Public Rights of Way (PROW) and Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) now to be known as Traffic Management (TM) Services from the Public Realm Contract delivered by Balfour Beatty Living Places (BBLP) which will involve the necessary TUPE staff transfer process.

The cabinet member infrastructure and transport introduced the report and explained the expected benefits of bring these teams back in house. He thanked the cabinet support member who had been heavily involved in this project.

There was a backlog of over 120 schemes waiting to be assessed and it was felt that an in house team would be more efficient and be able to make progress on this. The move would also remove the management fee currently paid. The change had been mutually agreed with the current contractor and it was expected that the transfer would be progressed in a co-operative way.

Group leaders welcomed the proposals and expressed their hopes that the expected improvements would be delivered.

It was resolved that:

a)    That the Public Rights of Way (PROW) and Traffic Management (TM) Services currently delivered by BBLP on behalf of the Council as part of the Public Realm Contract, be insourced to Herefordshire Council for delivery as Phase 1 of a transformation of services project;

b)    That the Public Realm contract currently delivered by Balfour Beatty Living Place be varied accordingly to enable the insourcing of PROW and TM Services to the Council;

c)    That staff within the Public Rights of Way and Traffic Management Services be transferred to Herefordshire Council in line with Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations (TUPE);

d)    That a Service Level Agreement (SLA) be entered into with Hoople for the delivery of all revenue maintenance activities for PROW.

e)    A formal review of the PROW/TM service is undertaken post April 2022 as Phase two and any outputs and recommendations are presented in a further report for Cabinet Member approval by November 2022; and

f)      That all operational and budgetary decisions regarding this transfer be made by the Interim Service Director Environment, Highways and Waste following consultation with the s151 Officer.