Plan to spend £1m on grounds maintenance rescinded after “unsafe” decision-making process

Waverley Borough Council has rescinded a decision to spend £1m on bringing its grounds maintenance services in-house after the opposition leader questioned whether sufficient information had been provided to make the decision.

Cllr Jane Austin, leader of the Conservatives, claimed councillors were handed reports containing conflicting information, adding that council officers "now agreed" that the decision could be open to challenge.

The council's executive committee previously agreed that the council should bring grounds maintenance in-house in order to secure future savings and alignment with the council's policies, environmental commitments and ambitions.

The plans would require a £1m spend in order to purchase the required machinery, vehicles and equipment, as well as essential one-off mobilisation requirements.

Councillors approved the plan at a full council meeting on 25 March, despite some members raising concerns over the perceived lack of detail contained within the report.

At a later full council meeting held on 23 April, Cllr Austin raised a motion to rescind the decision, describing it as "not safe" and potentially open to challenge.

Her motion called on the council to note that "both the officer report and the statements made to full council on 25 March provided conflicting information and failed to take into account relevant matters".

Speaking to full council on 23 April, Cllr Austin said: "What was in question here was honesty, honesty from councillors and actually from officers, whether our decision making was robust and whether our councillors had been provided with sufficient appropriate information that they could rely on."

Cllr Austin said she had reached "a high evidential threshold," demonstrating to officers that insufficient and inaccurate information was provided to members and that the principles of decision-making were not being complied with.

"Following this process, our statutory officers now agree this decision was not safe and could have potentially been open to challenge," she said.

The council's leader, Liberal Democrat Cllr Paul Follows, seconded the motion but stated that he believed there had not been any attempt from councillors "to do anything other than relay information that was given to them in good faith as well".

He added that he is investigating how reports come into the executive and progress to full council.

He said: "If there are areas where we as an executive do not get correct information, that information then becomes incorrect at council, and that does need to be dealt with.

"I have asked officers to look at the root causes as to why that happened in that particular way.

"I have some suspicions in this particular case of those root causes but it would be definitely inappropriate for me to go into them in a public room like this."

He said he was keen to explore the circumstances in an exempt overview and scrutiny committee meeting.

Adam Carey