Blaenau Gwent council need to find £106k after pulling out of regional collaboration

The two councils have jointly provided Public Protection Services for almost four years, but they have decided to end the partnership from November 30 this year.

Trading standards, licensing and environmental health services have been provided jointly as part of the agreement.

The partnership was formed amid the Welsh Government asking councils to consider mergers – with Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent’s bid to join forces one of three to be turned down in 2015.

It also allowed both councils to find savings, enabling voluntary redundancies of Torfaen council’s then head of Public Protection and the team leader for licensing services.

However since local elections in 2017 there has been “a significant change in approach to front-line service delivery” in Torfaen, shifting from collaboration to in-house delivery of services, a council report says.

“It has become clear that the collaboration is not now sustainable as currently set-up,” the report says.

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The report says staff working across two systems, within two cultures and two different political planning regimes led to “increased demands, heightened stress levels and discontent and has resulted in some staff sickness.”

Blaenau Gwent council’s executive agreed for the council to withdraw from the collaboration at a meeting on Wednesday.

Councillor Garth Collier, deputy leader and member for environment services, said services would need to be reviewed to find savings as a result.

“The worrying thing is in 2020/21 there is an overspend of £106,000,” Cllr Collier said.

Council leader, Nigel Daniels, said ending the collaboration was ‘unfortunate.

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“We are where we are,” he added.

“We need to be mindful of the budgetary implications.

“Our priority is financial resilience so we can’t be sidetracked by this.

“There needs to be a full service review to find the £106,000 to get back on track.”

Richard Crook, the council’s corporate director for regeneration and community services, said ending the partnership does not signal an end to delivering services jointly.

Mr Crook said both councils had benefitted from the partnership and that “the door is still open” to new collaborations.

Blaenau Gwent council would have favoured changing the set up of the collaboration, rather than ending it, but a report says Torfaen’s change in approach to service delivery prevented this.