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News and Comment November 2022

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1 November - How many Council employees does it take to change a light bulb?

Councillor BorellaBexley Council has contracted out its facilities management to a couple of different companies over the years and parted company with all of them, most recently Amey three years ago.

Facilities companies do all the odd jobs, like providing the door staff, maintaining the lifts and unblocking the toilets. Thanks perhaps to Covid I never got to hear who took over from Amey but the Agenda to the Finance Committee refers to the work being taken in-house.

I don’t think I have ever had to report such a thing before but in practice Bexley Council does not seem to be employing its own Gas Safety engineers but instead contracting a specialist for every eventuality. That sounds like a nightmare to manage so we must hope that my summary is not entirely accurate.

Whatever the case, Bexley Council has set itself up with what it calls a Corporate Landlord and as such various rules, standards and targets have been set.

What did Councillors have to say about the success or otherwise of the new arrangements?

Apart from Labour Leader Stefano Borella not a lot. He thought the report was inadequate and did not explain things well enough. The Watling Street headquarters is no longer used as it was when it opened in 2014, there is no longer a Contact Centre, staff work from home and referring simply to electrical and plumbing issues is not good enough. What are the long term plans?

“Assets are being sold off, there is no Council Housing and the reserve situation is not in the most healthy position.

Cabinet Member Leaf said that selling assets no longer in use is good practice and it reduces maintenance costs and total energy costs have actually gone down this year. He said that consolidation into a refurbished Watling Street had saved a lot of money and alleged that it was opposed by Labour. Not really true of course, Labour was fully behind consolidation but argued that a new build would be even better.

Councillor Borella asked about a suggestion that Bexleyheath Central Library might be closed and moved into Watling Street. Belvedere Library is on the disposal list too. What is to be done with that site? The Cabinet Member did not answer any of the questions and instead hid behind the commercial sensitivity excuse but there were no denials.

Councillor Andrew Curtois (Conservative, Falconwood & Welling) by his question confirmed my own view that the big Amey contact has been replaced by a large number of little ones which isn’t what is generally meant by in-house. He asked the Finance Director if his interpretation was true and it is. There are now seven different contracts each small enough to be easily managed.

The other new Falconwood Conservative, Frazer Brooks, asked about two Council Assets apparently being sold for nothing.
Asset Sales

Bexley land sales.

They were in fact just simple road closures (Stopping Up Orders) rather than disposals.

Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) said that ownership of the various scout huts and community centres was inconsistent but he was more concerned with the disabled toilets (Changing Places) opened amid much fanfare four years ago. They had been shut for the past two and a half years. “There is a revenue cost and the most vulnerable people are disadvantaged.”

No solution to the repeated vandalism has been found but the Finance Director offered some hope that Social Care would be re-examining the problem.

Councillor Cameron Smith (Conservative. St. Mary’s & St. James) asked if there was any scope for installing more solar panels on Council property. The Finance Director was quite rightly cautious about the payback time.

it would appear that the new intake of Conservative Councillors is beginning to overshadow the old-timers.

 

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