Decision

To create a Joint Technical Services Manager post shared across Guildford and Waverley Councils.
The proposal establishes a permanent shared arrangement for a single Joint Technical Services Manager role across Guildford and Waverley Borough Councils.
There is a post in each council currently, and the proposal is to merge these into one joint post.
Under this proposal, we will consult with the current Technical Services Manager postholder at Guildford to take on the new joint role, while the equivalent vacant post at Waverley will be deleted. This will result in the creation of one permanent Joint Technical Services Manager position serving both councils.
The proposal is expected to deliver budget savings and improved service outcomes for both councils through greater collaboration, increased efficiency, and streamlined management arrangements.

Reasons for the decision

The proposal is to slot Guildford’s current Technical Services Manager postholder into a joint post, meaning we do not need to recruit to Waverley’s vacant position, creating savings and improved performance for both councils. Current staffing capacity is limited since Waverley’s Senior Building Surveyor retired in May 2025. Recruitment to replace the Senior Building Surveyor was unsuccessful. Over the past 12 months, Waverley’s building surveyors and engineers have had no appointed technical leadership or team manager, relying instead on the Joint Director for direction and line management. Actioning this proposal realigns the management of this work area with the required skill set and enables the delivery of critical outcomes such as capital programme projects and provision of compliant buildings in a timely, compliant and more sustainable way as soon as possible.

Alternative options considered

Option 1:
Remain as is: not viable. Resource pressures will be exacerbated as service challenges already exist by over-reliance on the Joint Director to cover and manage Waverley’s technical staff. This is neither practical time-wise but also in terms of the Joint Director lacking the required skill set. This is impacting the smooth delivery of repair and maintenance, compliance and capital projects across the corporate property portfolio. This gap remains in place because we have been unable to successfully attract a replacement Waverley Senior Building Surveyor candidate.
Option 2:
Do minimum: create the Joint Technical Services Manager post (recommended).
Option 3:
Do maximum: create a fully joint team.
At present this is not proposed due to the capacity and time constraints within the service to create a joint service as well as the impact on the organisation’s administrative services that would be involved in assisting such a transition. This can be re-considered once the post is filled.
Option 4:
Contracting Out: not a viable option. Timeframes required to start looking at this with LGR on the horizon work against this being an option.
Recommendation:
Option 2: to create a Joint Technical Services Manager post, shared across Guildford and Waverley. Doing so will enable a more sustainable delivery model that improves our resilience to deliver building surveying and engineering services across both councils through shared contracts, knowledge and experiences. It safeguards more effectively our delivery of repairs and maintenance and capital projects in line with strategic objectives whilst delivering budget savings and improved outcomes.