A report to a Bridgend Council scrutiny committee underlined the serious challenges one of the council’s most important departments faces to deliver its services (pdf).
The Communities Directorate – responsible for planning, highways, waste & recycling, regeneration, economic development, parks and cemetery services – has seen its budget cut by just over £11.7million over the last decade (a 38% cut in real terms). This is mainly to protect spending on education and social services.
Also, it’s the department with the second lowest number of staff – 586.
Staffing pressures directly impact services; tourism “team” cut to just 1 person
The report says the impact of the cuts began to be most keenly felt from 2018 onwards when some teams (street cleaning, green spaces, transport) saw staffing numbers cut by up to half, while the council’s tourism team was cut from 22 staff to just 1.
As in other council departments, vacancies have become difficult to fill – particularly in specially qualified senior positions like planning officers, building control officers and engineers.
The perceivably poor performance by the directorate is causing frustration amongst staff, as well as the public and local politicians. While there have been improvements, delays in responding to referrals from councillors are acknowledged.
The way forward
The Communities Directorate is said to need a new five-year plan as in its current state it can’t deliver all of the services it has to by law (known as statutory services) without delays.
It needs to be made clear that the directorate has to do more with less, managing the expectations of residents and councillors. Part of that also means “helping communities find solutions for themselves” and “delivering fewer services, but better”.
That could be interpreted as meaning town & community councils doing more (i.e. taking on some litter services and rights of way management for themselves), as well as straight-up cuts to protect only those services the council is legally obligated to provide.
