CALL FOR FULL TRANSPARENCY IN RESPECT OF STAFF SHARING
Legal costs, including the cost of Heminsley Report and other legal advice are
currently split 50:50 between councils under the terms of the Inter-authority
agreement. To date, this has included direct costs of £109k for the report plus
costs of legal Counsel (costs still awaited).
Leader of the Opposition at Waverley Borough Council, Cllr Jane Austin, called
upon both Councils to review how staff sharing arrangements are measured during
the debate at Full Council on 23rd January. Cllr Austin also stated said Waverley
residents should not have had to pay towards legal and investigations costs
incurred because of alleged fraud and failures of governance at a completely
different Council and not part of the shared services.
Since 2022, WBC /GBC share senior management teams and numerous other roles.
It is still unclear how (and if) the time allocated by staff to each Council is
measured.
It is the view of both Council groups that Guildford’s financial and governance
issues have been a serious distraction for many joint officers since the start of the
collaboration - to both councils’ detriment.
Both Conservative Council groups believe Waverley has in effect been subsidising
Guildford for years via these staff sharing arrangements. The Heminsley report into
officer involvement in the alleged fraud has added weight to these concerns, with
interviewees describing the pressure put upon them, including that the
'collaboration' has been a great strain and that joint roles were felt to be too
large.
Leader of the Opposition at Waverley Borough Council, Cllr Jane Austin said:
“It is not right or fair that Waverley residents should have to pay significant
one-off costs relating to alleged fraud and serious failures of governance at a
completely different Council. Similarly, we want to know we are not effectively
subsidising a completely different Council via staff sharing arrangements, aboutwhich there is little transparency. We want complete openness for our
residents on this matter.”
“Our two Councils are sadly still dealing with the fallout both from the
collaboration and the issues at Guildford. I take comfort that this mess of a
collaboration will soon be replaced with a more efficient Unitary structure across
Surrey.”
Leader of the Opposition at Guildford Borough Council, Cllr Philip Brooker said:
"As the opposition group we continue in our mission to demand transparency and
openness on behalf of our residents."
"Staff sharing has always been a major ongoing concern for us in this collaboration
of our two Councils. We’ve lost nearly all senior joint managers in the last 3 years,
including some directly because of the alleged fraud investigation. I have always
asserted that diluting senior staff leads to overstretched officers making rushed
decisions, leading to consequential costs. GBC’s disastrous financial performance
is probably a reflection of this. Bearing in mind the costs of the investigations and
reports were disproportionately in rectifying GBC issues, it seems inequitable that
Waverley should bear half of these costs, although required to do so under a
poorly thought out collaboration agreement.”
