Purpose

Following the recently published Peer Review
on Public Protection Partnership this decision will deal with the
future of the service arrangements

Decision

RESOLVED that the Cabinet approves the
following recommendations following the peer review:
 

a.    
Bracknell Forest Council enter into a new three authority agreement
with West Berkshire Council and Wokingham Borough Council until the
31st March 2029.
 

b.    
That the agreement includes an exit clause based on a minimum of
twelve months’ notice.
 

c.    
The Cabinet agrees to extend the delegation of the Executive
Functions undertaken by the Public Protection Service to the Joint
Public Protection Committee until 31st March 2029.
 

d.    
That in line with the recommendations of the peer review the host
authority should remain West Berkshire Council to avoid significant
short-term disruption.
 

e.    
That an annual performance and service update report for the
Service be considered by the Communities and Environment Scrutiny
Panel.
 

f.     
That the partners should not wait for the expiry of the existing
agreements but enter into the new arrangement as soon as
practically possible.
 

g.    
That Wokingham Borough Council becomes a full Member of the Joint
Public Protection Committee in line with the governance
arrangements set out in the original inter-authority agreement of
the 6th January 2017.

Reasons for the decision

A peer review of the existing Public Protect
Partnership arrangements was
conducted between October 2024 and January
2025. The review team concluded
that the Service is focussed and effective in
providing statutory regulatory services to
protect residents. It also concluded that as a
shared service it is delivering
efficiencies and greater service resilience
than individual authorities would be able to
achieve. The review made a series of
recommendations for all three partner
authorities (Bracknell Forest, West Berkshire
and Wokingham Borough Councils) to
consider. A full summary of the findings of
the review can be found here: Peer
Review Recommendations

Alternative options considered

i.      
Not to renew the partnership. This was discounted given the
efficiencies and greater service resilience resulting from being in
the partnership.
 

ii.    
The savings from shared services arise from sharing the costs of
management as well as systems such as ICT and subscriptions such as
legal subscriptions etc. In addition, the critical mass that the
shared service provides allows for it to access significant amounts
of grant funding (currently around £400K per annum) as well
as share cost bases with other authorities outside of the PPP e.g.
financial investigation work, complex investigations, case
management functions and other specialist functions such as animal
feeding stuffs.
 

iii.   
It is estimated that an injection of around £250-£300K
would be needed to re-instate a stand-alone in-house service if
operational capacity was not to be lost. This includes management
costs of around £200K (including re-instating the Head of
Service role), ICT costs and other licensing costs of around
£50K and then lost grant income would need to be factored in.
There will also likely be capital / project costs associated with
system and data migration and set up and revenue programme costs
associated with managing the disaggregation. More importantly all
of the benefits arising from the original business case would be
lost.
 

iv.   
In addition, a decision to disaggregate the service would require a
protracted HR process including full consultation with staff
followed by TUPE transfer to individual partner authorities. The
disruption will inevitably lead to the loss of some staff through
retirement or seeking alternative roles. This may exacerbate the
resource / skill challenges that will potentially arise from the
loss of economies of scale. Should reorganisation ultimately effect
BFC this would mean the staff going through this process twice in
quick succession. The timing of this extension allows for a much
clearer picture and set of options to emerge.