Tayside Contratcs - Annual Performance Report
Perth and Kinross Council · 24 April 2024
Back to Scrutiny and Performance Committee — 24 April 2024 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT 2022/23
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Page Introduction 3 Corporate Leadership Team 5 Tayside Contracts - Who We Are, and What We Do 6 Plan on a Page 8 Our 5C’s: Confidence, Trust and Relationships 9 Commercial Approach 15 Collaboration and Sharing 20 Continuous Improvement and Performance 29 Communities, Councils and Customers 40 Summary of KPI’s and Targets 50 1
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Thank you for taking the time read our Annual Performance Report. This report summarises the work undertaken across all Tayside Contracts’ activities during 2022/23, to deliver the best possible services, and achieve the best possible outcomes, for the communities of Tayside. We are proud of what we do, and the report presents us with an opportunity to celebrate our successes, and highlights our strengths, whilst also reflecting on the challenges we have faced, and those areas where we need to make further improvements. The period covered in this report represents one of the most difficult and unpredictable periods in the organisation's 27-year history, as we emerged from the last of the COVID lockdowns, and faced the impacts of the post pandemic recovery, including severe shortages of goods and services, coupled with essential items – such as gas, electricity, diesel and bitumen – increasing at rates, far higher than general inflation. With inflation at record levels during the year, this resulted in unprecedented pay costs. With pay awards weighted to lower paid workers, this was especially expensive for Tayside Contract. We also experienced low school meal uptake following the pandemic, as well some of our highest levels of sickness absence, turnover, and skills shortages during the year, reflecting similar national trends across the public and private sector. These pressures on our people – both at work and in their home lives – have had a substantial bearing on our employees and it is no surprise that stress, work-related stress and depression now account for 43% of the total days lost through sickness absence. Our Annual Performance Report highlights the proactive measures we have taken to help deal with these physical and mental health challenges, to keep our people safe. Despite these challenges, we achieved a range of successes. For example; the success of our School Meals Action Plan delivered an increase of 14% in average daily meal uptake over the year. we generated an additional income from other public bodies and external customers of £1.2m (an increase of 26% from the previous year). the launch of our new Community Fund, which enabled us to support 29 groups deliver local community empowerment. Despite the ongoing challenges of recruitment difficulties and higher than normal sickness levels, we continued to deliver services across all Council areas with no service failure. The success of Tayside Contracts relies on our employees. This has been no exception during the last 12 months, with our employees working tirelessly, under the most difficult circumstances, to deliver the essential services needed by our communities across the area. Without their commitment and dedication, many of the core services that our stakeholders have been required to deliver to support to our schools and communities, as well as keeping the road network serviced and maintained in all weather conditions, would not have been possible. 3
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The greatest challenge we continue to face will be the significant financial pressures arising from government budget restrictions, record levels of inflation, and unprecedented increases in costs such as pay awards. These will put a substantial pressure on meeting our budgets and delivering our essential services, for 2023/24 and beyond. To achieve our aims, teamwork is essential, and we would like to thank members of the Tayside Contracts Joint Committee, colleagues from our three constituent Councils, our affiliated Trade Unions, and our selfless and hardworking people within Tayside Contracts, for their contribution to working together to deliver the actions contained in this Annual Performance Report and to deliver vital services to the communities of Tayside. We have set out our 2022/23 achievements under the ‘5C themes’ of the current 2021/24 Business Plan. These themes are: Confidence, Trust and Relationships Commercial Approach Collaboration and Sharing Continuous Improvement & Performance Communities, Councils and Customers Bailie Mike Williamson Convener of Tayside Contracts Keith McNamara Managing Director 4
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Our Corporate Leadership Team 5
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Our Facilities Management team keep over 400 buildings clean and well maintained and help ensure all the occupants are safe. We are very proud of what we do in Tayside Contracts; We are the largest civil engineering construction organisation in Tayside - carrying out £45 million of road repairs, maintenance and construction, winter maintenance, and street lighting improvements each year. We are also Tayside’s largest catering organisation – serving over 5 million meals every year to schools and community customers – that’s 28,000 meals each day. Our School Crossing Patrollers help to keep the children of Tayside safe when travelling to and from the 175 schools in Tayside. During the winter we treat over 355,000 kilometres of roads, to protect the travelling public We operate a fleet of 600 Tayside Contracts vehicles and plant. Through the Angus Fleet Partnership, we also manage and maintain a further 370 vehicles and plant on behalf of Angus Council. 6 Who We Are For the past 27 years, Tayside Contracts has been the collaborative and commercial operating arm for the three Councils in Tayside (our constituent Councils): Angus Council Dundee City Council Perth & Kinross Council We are not a private company. We are governed by a Joint Committee of 18 Elected Members from the three Councils. Who We Are and What We Do What We Do We provide essential public services to the 400,000 residents in Tayside on behalf of the three Councils. Our annualOur annualOur annual Turnover is aroundTurnover is aroundTurnover is around We have 4 recycling depots strategically placed within the Tayside area, ensuring waste from our construction activities is reprocessed into saleable products. Our Quarry at Collace in Perthshire produces over 110,000 tonnes of coated and dry roadstone materials each year, to keep Tayside’s roads well maintained. We currentlyWe currentlyWe currently havehavehave posts.posts.posts. 3,200 £89m
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We operate as a business and carry out work for other public bodies, private firms and the wider public. Every pound we make through our commercial activities is reinvested in our public services and local communities. By doing what we do and making sure we provide high quality and cost-effective services, we are enhancing the communities of Tayside. To view a short video on who we are and what we do, click here. All of these activities are supported by our highly professional Human Resources, Safety and Training, IT, Finance, Communications, Equalities and Business Support teams – who are invaluable to our success. 7
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Confidence, Trust and Relationships ‘Proud of what we do, chosen for how we do it’ Tayside Contracts can only survive and thrive if we have the strongest possible relationship of transparency, honesty, mutual respect and trust with the Elected Members and officers of our constituent Councils. We rely on Councils to trust us to deliver shared services on their behalf, based on their confidence in our ability to deliver excellent services. Our Vision is to grow our organisation by taking on greater business opportunities beyond the Councils in Tayside. Therefore, we also want these other prospective customers to choose Tayside Contracts, for how we do things - for anticipating their needs, providing high quality services, and delivering best value for them. Introduction Here are some of our highlights during 2022/23: - The financial stability of Tayside Contracts is essential to maintain the confidence of our constituent Councils. For the year 2022/23, despite the unprecedented trading conditions, we achieved an overall distributable surplus of £977k. This surplus was achieved through the positive performance and contribution by all parts of the organisation, as well as close working with our constituent Councils, which had to incur additional costs, as we passed on increased charges to cover the impact of record levels of pay awards. The statutory trading surpluses achieved over the last three years are £3.4m for the Construction Division and a break-even position for the Facilities Services Division- with all surpluses being distributed to the constituent Councils. Over the past 27 years, Tayside Contracts has performed well in terms of operational and financial performance, returning over £31m to the constituent Councils in surpluses, to allow reinvestment in public services. Despite the various challenges of supply chain shortages of essential materials, accompanied by significantly higher than inflation costs for many materials and services, our Construction Division increased its turnover by £1.5m (3.1%) to £51.2m in 2022/23, compared to £49.7m in 2021/22. Income from the constituent Councils increased by £305k to £46.5m. Work from other public bodies and external customers increased by £1.2m (a 26% increase) to £4.6m. This was achieved through additional Scottish Government- funded active travel projects, and significant additional income from private customers and other new constituent Councils' works, combined with a saving in various overheads, helping to maximise both workloads and income. 9
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We also benchmark with other organisations to learn about areas we can improve, and we celebrate our successes through the award nominations we receive. 2022/23 was another successful year for Tayside Contracts, where we were proud to be nominated for the following UK-wide APSE Performance Networks awards: The fact that we were nominated for these national awards is evidence of the quality of services we provided during the year. With the significant challenges facing Scottish Councils over the next few years, it is more vital than ever to be reassured that public services are being provided through the most appropriate service delivery models; and that the greatest focus is given to ensuring efficiencies, transformation and income generation, to mitigate against reductions in public service delivery - as well as maximising the advantages of the greater collaboration that Tayside Contracts offers. We have worked with our Council colleagues or the Governance and Strategy Group on a shared development of transformational actions that maximise the delivery of service, whilst minimising costs – this is known as our ‘Change Plan’. Overall, the organisation achieved a 5.4 % increase in income of £92,265k which is a £4,753k increase on the 2021/22 figure of £87,512k (and above budget expectations by £8,620k). The Facilities Services Division comprises the Facilities Management (FM) and Catering Units. The underlying operational and financial performance of the Division remained sound. However, 2022/23 saw the consequences of the pandemic having an opposite impact on the two units within the Division. The FM Unit achieved a significantly higher surplus, due to the greatly increased amount of cleaning required across the school estate and in non-school premises - showing an increase of £1.3m compared to budget, and a £708k increase on the 2021-22 surplus. However, due to change in habits formed as a result of COVID-19, meal uptake has not reverted to pre-pandemic levels (a situation reflected within school catering services throughout Scotland). This has severely impacted on the financial outcomes of the Catering Unit, although, more encouragingly, meal numbers did increase steadily during the financial year (average daily meal numbers increased by 14% over the year). Despite the challenges, Facilities Services Trading Account for 2022/23 shows an increase in income of £3.2m (8.5%), to £41m compared with 2021/22 (£37.8m), with a distributable surplus of £367k achieved for the Facilities Division. 10 Street Lighting Partnership (Dundee) - nomination for Street Lighting ‘Best Performer’ and ‘Most Improved’ finalist. Transport Services – nomination for Transport Operations and Vehicle Maintenance- ‘Most Improved’ finalist Angus Council – nomination for Roads, Highways and Winter Maintenance - ‘Most Improved’ finalist
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1 These developments have been informed in part by the outcomes from joint workshops held with colleagues in our constituent Councils in 2022 on Roads Maintenance and Facilities Services, to identify transformational options, to meet the challenges. As part of our drive to reassure our constituent Councils that we are as cost-efficient as we can possibly be, and that our future plans to maximise sharing services and expand our business to other customers are effective, in March 2023, the Chief Executives of the three constituent Councils and the Managing Director of Tayside Contracts commissioned a Supported Self-Assessment by an independent reviewer into the activities of Tayside Contracts. The outcomes of this review work will help strengthen our approach to the challenges ahead. We are committed to sound governance and the effective delivery of services. The effectiveness of our governance framework is reviewed annually by the Managing Director and the Corporate Leadership Team, through use of a self-assessment scoring mechanism as part our Annual Governance Statement. This assessment showed that Tayside Contracts had 68 items (91%) fully compliant with the existing guidelines (exceeding our 80% target). This objective evaluation provides reassurance over Tayside Contracts’ governance arrangements. Confidence in our activities can also be gained by the independent assurance on our performance, provided by our Internal Auditors. For their 2022/23 annual report, Internal Audit concluded that 'Tayside Contracts had adequate and effective risk management, control and governance processes to manage the achievement of its objectives, and that Tayside Contracts has proper arrangements to promote and secure value for money'. Internal Audit provided a ‘Strong' level of assurance that the organisation had implemented their Auditor’s recommendations. In addition, Internal Auditors awarded Tayside Contracts with a 'Strong' level of assurance relating to our Procurement arrangements, identifying 7 areas of good practice. A similar 'Strong' level of assurance was given for the organisation’s Communications and Social Media functions, with Auditors highlighting 13 areas of good practice within the organisation. Tayside Contracts continues to retain ‘High Confidence’ centre accreditation to enable us to deliver a wide range of training, qualifications and awards. We are proud to be accredited as approved providers/trainers with the following organisations: 11
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Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS) Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) Highway and Construction Training Association (HCTA) DVSA Training Accreditation (DVSA) Street Works Qualifications Register (SWQR) Public Health Scotland – Scotland’s Mental Health First Aid (SMHFA) Casestudy In early 2023, our Training and Development Adviser, Susie Newton was recognised by the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS), by being awarded the prestigious REHIS ‘President's Award’ for an ‘individual who has significantly contributed to the improvement and protection of health and wellbeing in Scotland’. This award was given for the REHIS courses delivered both in-house, externally to other groups, and to the local charity, Dundee Bairns In addition Susie developed and piloted a new national course in the important area of food nutrition; and she was also recognised for her selfless volunteering work with local soup kitchen, ‘Graham’s Kitchen’. 12 Confidence and trust in our High Performing Employees pictured here L to R is Ron McCabe, Safety & Training Manager, Susie Newton and Evonne Bauer, REHIS President
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Award Winning Response to Successful Operation Unicorn Tayside Contracts played a key part in the multi-agency planning and assisting with the delivery and resources of within the Dundee and Angus. With global media attention on Dundee section of the cortege route, there was no room for oversights or mistakes which could affect the cortege’s safety or delay free passage through the city. Planning was of vital importance given the city’s roads were expected to be overwhelmed by an estimated 75,000 members of the public expecting to pay their final respects. Volunteers from throughout the Dundee Roads Maintenance Partnership (DRMP) and Dundee Street Lighting Partnership (DSLP) planned for and implemented over 30 closures only minutes before HM cortege passed through the city. The cortege passed through the city of Dundee trouble-free and immediately closures began to be removed by the DRMP and DSLP volunteers to allow well-wishers and the residents of Dundee to return back to their normal day to day. Tayside Contracts Facilities Team also supported this event by providing 700 welcome meals and drinks for the volunteers attending the route of the cortege. The efforts of these partnerships, as part of the greater Dundee City Council Operation Unicorn delivery team, was recognised at Dundee City Councils annual awards ceremony (the OSCAs) by winning the ‘Above and Beyond Award’ from the Leader of Dundee City Council. Without doubt the greatest challenge has been the post-pandemic supply chain and cost of living crisis, with resulting financial consequences. International supply chain pressures meant that the lead times for supply (and occasionally zero supply) of essential goods such as replacement vehicles, flood and bitumen for roads surfacing caused significant disruption to the organisation. Record levels of inflation has hit Tayside Contracts in two main ways. Firstly, the spiralling price of goods and services has hit Tayside Contracts with certain key items greatly exceeding inflation (in many cases over 50% and sometimes up to 150%) - this has impacted on the organisation's costs and profitability, as we attempted to absorb these costs wherever we can rather than charge these to our constituent Councils. Additional costs such as labour, materials, plant and sub-contractors have resulted in our surplus of £977k being lower than originally budgeted a (£1,634k). Casestudy Following the sad announcement of HM Queen Elizabeth passing on 8 September 2022, longstanding plans were activated for 'Operation Unicorn', for the funeral cortege passing through the country, including Dundee on Sunday 11 September. 13
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Next Steps: The financial issues facing Tayside Contracts and Councils are both complex and challenging, and further engagements with Joint Committee members will be needed to share information on the scale of the financial challenges, as well as options to address these, to help inform Councillors when developing both Council budgets and Tayside Contracts budget, as well as the development of Tayside Contracts Medium Term Financial Strategy. We have engaged with the Joint Committee members and the Governance & Strategy Group, to ensure we provide the right performance information, at the right time and in the right format, for these groups and also, to our Council partners and our citizens. We are currently developing this into a dashboard approach, where performance information will be presented more clearly and pictorially, and will be accessible to stakeholders at any time, rather than needing to wait for scheduled update reports. The involvement of the Joint Committee and other key stakeholders will be essential in building a shared view of the future priorities for Tayside Contracts, New Business Plan which will set the agenda for the next 3 years, from 2024 onwards. We build confidence and trust in our services through our participation in national benchmarking exercise such as APSE (Association of Public Service Excellence) performance networks, the largest voluntary public sector benchmarking service across the UK, which is used by over 200 local authorities. Due to delays at APSE, the 2022/23 figures have not yet been released. Once these are issued we will use the data to compare our performance and target our prioritised areas for improvement. We will be incorporating the outcome and recommendations of the independent Supported Self-Assessment review into our future Improvement Plans. Record inflation has also greatly impacted on costs through the local authority pay award. As 73% of Tayside Contracts employees are on the Scottish Government Living Wage level (compared to 0% in our constituent Councils), these costs have disproportionately affected Tayside Contracts. The costs of the 2022/23 pay award added an extra £4.5m cost to the organisation (approximately 10% increase on pay costs), which was £3m higher than budgeted. This created both a pressure for Tayside Contracts and the constituent Councils during 2022/23, but these increases also add to the baseline of costs for 2023/24 budget and beyond. The other significant challenge in 2022/23 related to school meal numbers. The meal number targets were set with each of the Councils, at levels prior to the pandemic. However, the changes in behaviours of school pupils, developed during lockdown and restricted meal service (where pupils brought their own lunches or went out with the school to buy food) has carried forward into the year. This also impacted on Tayside Contracts' financial performance. 14
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‘Business head, community heart’ Commercial Approach Introduction The need for Tayside Contracts to extend our commercial approach is more vital than ever. We recognise that increasing our commercial income protects us from making savings in jobs and services. This safeguards public services from declining funding experienced in recent years, and likely to continue, as the economy recovers from the global pandemic. Expanding on our commercial portfolio is an essential part of our vision for the growth of the organisation. Here are some of our highlights during 2022/23: - Providing winter maintenance services and sharing our depots with the new North East Trunk Road operator, Amey – as part of our ongoing partnering arrangements (see case study). Provision of 134,500 tonnes of roadstone materials to the contractor in the construction of the Cross Tay Link Road (see case study on page 18). Commercial Business Achievements Our successful commercial activities delivered £4.6m of income from commercial customers and other public bodies, outwith our three constituent Councils in 2022/23 an increase of 26% (£1.2m) over the previous year. Highlights include. Delivery of roads improvement services to Fife Council, as part of their preparations for the 2022 Open Golf Championship at St Andrews. Provision of the Community meals teatime service for Angus Health & Social Care Partnership. 15
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North East Trunk Road Partnership with AMEY Tayside Contracts’ successful commercial approach can be demonstrated through our partnership working with the national infrastructure services and engineering company, Amey, to develop a bid to operate the maintenance of the strategic trunk roads in Scotland. This responsibility for roads in Scotland is split between local Councils for the majority of the roads - other than the main Trunk Roads, which are the responsibility of the Scottish Government, which tenders for providers to carry out all maintenance and management of these roads. Our hard work with AMEY was rewarded when in April 2022 Amey were awarded the North East Operating and Maintenance contract. This contract covers roads from the River Forth to the Moray Coast. Working in partnership with Amey, we are providing Depot facilities, fuel services and Stores at Forfar, Dundee and Perth, as well as providing a Winter Maintenance service on behalf of Amey. As the Trunk Road contract duration is 8 years with an additional 4 year option, this provides a substantial and sustained income to Tayside Contracts. We look forward to building on the commercial and partnership opportunities with Amey throughout the duration of the contract. Casestudies Providing Secure Supplies of Road Materials, and Commercial Opportunities, by Extending the Future Life of Collace Quarry Our shared quarry at Collace is located in the Sidlaw hills between Dundee and Perth and is therefore well placed relative to the Council areas it serves. It provides the three Councils and Tayside Contracts with an assured reasonably priced supply of roadstone materials to keep Tayside roads maintained. The quarry also generates income by providing its materials to other customers. The quarry produces more than 100,000 tonnes of material each year, and generates a turnover of £7.6 million. 16 Under the current planning approval, the remaining stone we are permitted to extract is estimated to be exhausted by 2025. To increase the operational life at Collace, to ensure long term security of supply, and expand commercial opportunities, during 2022/23 we invested in the detailed investigatory work, regulatory processes, and extensive community consultation to extend the quarry. If successful this will increase our stone reserves by over 3 million tonnes, 30- year extra life, increasing the area of the quarry by 2.2 hectares.
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Maximising our Commercial Activity - Cross Tay Link Road The Cross Tay Link Road is one of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken by Perth & Kinross Council. It involves the construction of a new 3- span bridge over the River Tay and a six kilometre stretch of new carriageway. The project will improve the local transport network and traffic flow and reduce journey times. It will also enhance pedestrian and cycle safety, increase network capacity as well as significantly reducing traffic congestion and related pollution in Perth city centre. The project is being delivered by engineering and construction group BAM Nuttall (BAM). During 2022/23 we worked with BAM to assist in the delivery of this key project. The location of Tayside Contracts and our Quarry at Collace in Perth & Kinross, are instrumental in helping to achieve a key objective of the project - to spread the benefits to the local community, and minimise the impact on the environment, using locally available resources where possible. Casestudy As part of a formal procurement process, Tayside Contracts successfully bid to provide capping materials (dry stone) for the project. In May 2022 an order was placed for more than 200,000 tonnes of stone. This is a great achievement for everyone at the quarry, as this material has been blasted, crushed, loaded, and transported to the project by the existing team on site. At the end of financial year 2022/23 this equated to 134,852 tonnes of material. Putting this into context, Collace averages 30,000 tonnes of capping sales per annum, so our production output had to increase by 450%. Not only does this give a boost to the quarry income it has the added advantage of accelerating the development of the southern rock faces within Collace. These faces have the “Red” rock conglomerate, which are not suitable for our normal asphalt road construction products, however this is, perfect rock for capping material, required for the Cross Tay project. In addition to the dry stone provision, Tayside Contracts, in partnership with Breedon Group, have also provided asphalt products for the contract. The provision of this service is ongoing and it is anticipated that Collace quarry will have supplied approximately 8,000T of coated material by the time the contract is completed. 17
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Casestudy Exploring further opportunities to provide meals and catering services for other councils were constrained by uncertainties across Scotland, as councils struggled to reach pre-pandemic levels of meal uptake. This also combined with uncertainties from the Scottish Government over the timescale for the introduction of the next phase of Universal Free School Meals (UFSM) in primaries (for P6 and P7), which would boost meal number demands on all councils. This made strategic planning very challenging for the councils we were keen to provide services for, as they prioritised the recovery of their existing services. With the Scottish Government now confirming the implementation of USFM by the end of 2025, this gives greater certainty for Councils future planning, and engagement with Tayside Contracts over how we can provide services to them. Provision of Community Meals Teas for Angus Council In August 2022, Tayside Contracts was asked by Angus Health & Social Care Partnership to temporarily provide a Cold Teas service, 7 days per week, for its Community Meals’ service users in Angus, due to supply issues with the Partnership’s current supplier. We were able to swiftly put arrangements in place to meet their needs, and the meals were freshly prepared daily by our Community Meals team based at Sidlawview Primary School in Dundee, who currently provide the meals for the Community Meals service in Dundee. We continued to provide these meals until October 2022. By that time our client decided to extend the arrangement due to the high quality of our service and product, and we are still providing this service. Mirroring national trends in 2022/23 following the pandemic, we experienced historically higher than average sickness absence rates and vacancy levels - with both these factors reaching the highest level in Tayside Contracts for several years. This challenged our ability to pursue external income in some cases, because with shortages in employees across the organisation, we did not have the confidence to deliver additional work, when staffing shortages were already impacting on our existing core services for our constituent Councils. 18
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Next Steps: Despite the above challenges our main target continues to be building on the investment made by our constituent Councils in our innovative cook freeze unit at Tay Cuisine. This project has been one of the largest initiatives ever embarked upon by Tayside Contracts, with an investment of £1.9m and years of planning and development. This creates excellent commercial opportunities. The unit is currently scheduled to produce around 5 million meals for nurseries, schools and community meals but has the potential capacity to produce up to 10 million meals per year. Therefore, we can offer the extra production capacity at the facility to other potential customers. We are currently engaging with several organisations which need school and community meals service, and are attracted by the low cost, high quality and consistency model offered by Tay Cuisine. We will continue to maximise the opportunities to generate more commercial income for Tayside Contracts so the financial benefits can be shared by our constituent Councils. We have a targeted list of commercial opportunities and are working through these with our teams, and prospective customers. We continue to tackle recruitment and sickness absence through implementation of our Wellbeing Strategy and Recruitment and Retention Strategy and their action plans, to ensure we have the workforce in place to meet the commercial opportunities which arise. 19
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Collaboration and Sharing ‘Sharing the gain’ Introduction Greater collaboration between our constituent Councils offers a proven route to reducing costs whilst maintaining service quality. If savings are not found through innovations such as sharing services, then our Councils will need to find these savings by other means, including service reductions. Sharing services also offers other benefits, such as being more attractive to recruit and retain staff; offering improved innovation opportunities by pooling investment across partners; providing the scale to access best practice and create centres of expertise; ensuring a large, flexible workforce available to deploy to priorities such as extreme weather events; and having access to specialist staff that individual partners would struggle to supply, if operating independently. Here are some of our highlights during 2022/23: - Our innovative cook freeze unit at Tay Cuisine (also known as the Central Production Unit, or CPU), had a first successful year of operation, including the incorporation of the primary school meals service for Perth & Kinross Council in 2022, which was a significant implementation project. Not only will this deliver year on year cost reductions of nearly £1m to the three Councils, and protects catering jobs and services long into the future, it also ‘future proofs’ the participating Councils from the advent of Universal Free School Meals for primary pupils - which will require an estimated 1.5 million extra meals to be produced across Tayside to meet demand. In 2022/23, we continued to expand the services we provide to our constituent Councils, generating additional income, and delivering more efficient services. Examples include: Gutter Cleaning service for Perth & Kinross Council schools now delivered in house, rather than outsourced. School window cleaning service for all three Councils now delivered in house, rather than outsourced. Providing Facilities Management services for Dundee City Council Community Centres, by transferring of 16 Resource Assistants to Tayside Contracts These additional activities contributed to the additional 5.4% income achieved by Tayside Contracts during the year. 20
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Window and Gutter Cleaning Minor Works Team Our Facilities Services Division (FSD) is always looking for innovative ways to improve and expand the services we provide to our constituent Councils. The close working relationship with Perth and Kinross’ Property Maintenance team highlighted an opportunity for our Business Improvement section to provide a service which was a significant departure from the kind of services we usually provide. The regular maintenance of flat roofs, gutter and down pipes is a cost-effective way to avoid the huge costs associated with repairing a building which has been damaged by roof leaks. Tayside Contracts and Perth and Kinross Council have already achieved a number of successes in providing minor works teams for property related works in schools and other buildings. Following a period of research and investigation, the gutter cleaning team was set up, to deliver this service for PKC to mitigate the risk of costly roof leaks. Taking up an opportunity to diversify and expand our business portfolio and further enhance the cost-efficiency of our services, we identified an opportunity to provide an ‘in-house’ window cleaning service for schools and other buildings in all three Council areas. Casestudy This service was previously delivered by a private window cleaning contractor but could now be amalgamated with our gutter cleaning service, given their synergies. In addition to the savings and improvement in quality achieved by providing these services ‘in-house’, the environmental credentials of the service were improved by implementing a ‘Smart Water’ window cleaning system which avoids the use of harsh chemicals in the delivery of these services. Further environmental benefits were realised in the reduction of road miles by providing the two services simultaneously from the same vehicle. The successful implementation of this initiative opens up the opportunity for the Facilities Services Team to expand into other minor works at schools and other sites, when our people are based at these locations, rather than pay expensive callout charges for private contractors. 21
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Roads Maintenance Partnerships in both Dundee City and Perth & Kinross, where we share Partnership Managers, who report jointly to both Tayside and Contracts and the Councils. Tayside wide Street Lighting Partnership. This partnership now includes all three Councils, so this one team provides an effective and integrated service across all of Tayside. Partnering arrangements with each of the three Councils for Facilities Management. The strong working relationship between Angus Council colleagues and our vehicle workshop maintenance staff is vital as we provide the Council’s Fleet Maintenance Service, keeping their staff on the move. The partnership is due for renewal in April 2024, as part of the process an overarching review will be undertaken, assisted by APSE, to review the benefits achieved to date and the areas where opportunities exist for further improvement. We are part of the shared Procurement Board with our three Councils (formerly known as Tayside Procurement Consortium). Partnerships in Practice We have continued to build positive trust and confidence through the successful formal partnerships we have with our constituent Councils. There is great value in the partnership approach to sharing staff and resources, as it saves considerable costs from having separate ‘Client’ and ‘Contractor’ roles in each organisation. The Partnerships we share with our Councils are: 22
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Financial Benefits of Partnering with Tayside Contracts in Perth & Kinross Working in partnership with Tayside Contracts enables a readily available workforce to be retained to deliver essential services such as Winter Maintenance and an Out of Hours response to weather events such as flooding, but also remains flexible enough to adjust workforce levels to accommodate fluctuations in road maintenance budgets. This gives our Councils confidence in being able to manage and maintain the road network, to meet statutory requirements, whilst providing reactive responses to assist local communities, when needed. As part of the partnership arrangement in Perth & Kinross, for example, a road maintenance framework contract is used by the Council to procure works both from Tayside Contracts and external contractors. This is one of the processes used to demonstrate ‘Best Value’ is being provided. An updated framework was issued for pricing in May 2022. Only 18 private sector contractors across 11 work activities submitted rates. Tayside Contracts were the only contractor to submit prices across all activities, ensuring Perth & Kinross has a trusted supplier which could fulfil the full range of works required by the Council. Casestudy Through the period of the previous framework contract (2017-2022) there was a request via the Partnering Board to focus potential savings back to the service, in addition to providing the agreed level of surplus. A key area of where this could be achieved was by not claiming additional contractual entitlements such as contract inflation allowed for by construction industry indices uplifts (BERR). In effect, this means that Tayside Contracts did not charge the Council for certain tasks, which we were entitled to do. Private sector contractors, however, would have claimed these contracted costs, irrespective of profit levels, with no returns to the Council. Over the course of the partnership period, (April 2019 to March 2023) this resulted in a total of just under £2m not being claimed by Tayside Contracts. Instead, this money was reinvested back in the road network – equivalent to almost 9 km of A Class road being resurfaced that wouldn’t otherwise have been done, thereby demonstrating a clear benefit to the Council of partnering with Tayside Contracts. 23
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Tri Council and Tayside Contracts Collaborative Service Delivery There is a history of collaboration of the three roads authorities across Tayside which has led to extensive close working arrangements, information sharing and joint procurement over the years. Tayside Contracts are fundamental to this collaboration, with the benefits of people and vehicle/equipment resources, which can be shared across the three authorities, as well as delivering the economies of scale in procurement for roads maintenance materials, and the ability to share specialist plant. With quarrying and bituminous plant capability provided by our Quarry at Collace, Tayside Contracts influence the market in the region, so competitors have to be wary about increasing their prices. The Tri-Council Maintenance Strategy Group (TCMSG) has worked on a range of projects initiated by the needs of its constituent councils to develop a joint understanding an approach to roads maintenance, with the common service provided by Tayside Contracts. This approach has been further strengthened in 2022/23 following conclusion of a ‘Test of Change’ review commissioned by the Chief Executives of the three Councils, and ‘Innovation Workshops’ between partners. Examples of the benefits achieved include: Casestudy Salt financial savings achieved by moving to the use of indigenous “Rock Salt” away from the much more expensive ‘Marine Salt’. Reduced road surfacing material types, with a standardised material guide, reducing Tayside Contracts costs. GPS tracking of Tayside Contracts vehicles to maximise fuel and vehicle maintenance economy. Shared training events. Winter forecasting contract procured across eight councils. Winter Policy alignment: cross boundary routes, to provide more standardisation and cost reductions. 24
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Casestudy Casestudy Road Condition Figure (RCI) improved by 0.9% meaning 22km of network in better condition. Safety Inspections again achieved the target of 95%. The number of potholes repaired in total (Category 1 to 4) was 10,443 which is significantly lower than the previous year, suggesting the investment by PKC is having a positive impact on both RCI and pothole numbers. First Time Permanent (FTP) repairs achieved the 80% target with 81% (8489) receiving a 1st time fix. Sharing Good Practice on Salt Use Reduces Council Costs Each winter Tayside Contracts procures road salt for the constituent Councils. There are two types of salt, marine and rock, with marine coming mainly from Spain and rock from England. There has always been a price differential between rock and marine salt with marine salt historically being substantially more expensive. Rock salt can potentially deteriorate when stored outside for prolonged periods and therefore Councils have traditionally purchased the more expensive marine salt for areas which had no storage cover. For winter 2022/23, an additional increase in prices for haulage was applied and the cost for marine salt increased again. For Perth and Kinross this would equate to an increased cost of £120k. A trial approach was taken, purchasing rock salt and storing it outside. This was closely monitored, and the assessment indicated that service was not compromised by this different approach. Roads Maintenance Partnerships: Collaborating to Deliver Improvements Perth Road Maintenance Partnership (PRMP) Investment is road resurfacing has continued to be a priority of Perth and Kinross Council again in 2022/23, and through the high quality, works carried out by Tayside Contracts, the national Road Condition Indicator (RCI) has improved. This was a key objective of Perth and Kinross Council, when allocating additional funding to road maintenance. Over the three-year period to the end of 2022/23, this investment has resulted in 160km of the road network being in a better condition. The value of operating our own quarry at Collace contributed substantially, by supply 40,965 tonnes of coated material through a collaborative planning and programmed approach to ensure maximum efficiency and delivery. The key highlights from 2022/23: 25 Sharing this experience through the Tri Council Maintenance Strategy Group has resulted in Angus Council also moving to rock salt use, in areas where externally stored, for winter 2023/24, which will also provide savings for that Council.
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Percentage of jobs with works information received from Angus Council prior to works starting (2 weeks baseline), Target 60%, Actual 67%. The receipt of this info is crucial in the planning and programming of works. Percentage of jobs started on (agreed) time, Target 90%, Actual 70%. This is an area that is influenced by when work information is received, when previous works are completed and available resources to undertake. It was agreed to look at this collectively with an aim to improve for 2023/24. Percentage of jobs completed in (agreed) duration, Target 80%, Actual 74%. This can be influenced when additional works have been commissioned. Although the outcome was close to the intended target, it was agreed to look at this collectively with an aim to improve for 2023/24. First Time Permanent fix repairs completed for the year was 3325 m2. There is no formal target for this and is based on the requirements set out in the specification. Gully cleansing for 2022/23 – cleaned 32,596 (102%) of the targeted 32,000 gullies per annum. Dundee Road Maintenance Partnership (DRMP) Performance is monitored and reported to the Dundee Road Maintenance Partnership Board Quarterly, with an annual report summarising the overall performance in June each year. The key highlights from 2022/23: Safety Inspection performing above target at 96% against a target of 95% Defect repair compliance was very positive. with Category 1, 2 & 3 road repairs all completed within target times for 2022/23 with response rates of Cat 1 (100% compared to target 90%), Cat 2 (94% compared to target 85%) and Cat 3 (97% compared to target 80%) First Time Permanent (FTP) repairs significantly increased year on year with 43.6% (30% target) of all defects repaired by permanent methods, an improvement compared to 15.1% as recorded last year. Gully cleansing - the rolling 2-year average of 35,116 remains above targeted level of 33,200 cleans. Angus Operations – Collaborative Roads Maintenance Service Delivery Tayside Contracts has been delivering the core infrastructure service for Angus Council since it was established, the service provision is discussed and monitored at an Angus Headquarters meeting, quarterly. The key areas monitored for 2022/23 are: 26
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Casestudy Angus Tayside-wide Collaboration in Practice Street Lighting Partnership Street Lighting is a core service delivered by Tayside Contracts, maintaining a large scale illuminated asset to keep people safe – this includes 72,000 illuminated columns, 4,560 illuminated signs and 1,380 illuminated bollards. The Partnership also undertakes a variety of electrical and lighting commissioned for private sector clients and developers. Our recently expanded tri-Council Partnership for Street Lighting now includes Angus Council, which now benefits from our collaborative approach to service provision. The Street Lighting Partnership is an excellent example of collaborative success in practice, and this can be evidenced through performance information, which is monitored through the Tri Street Lighting Partnership Board which meet on a quarterly basis as part of the formal governance arrangements. The performance data used are a combination of information made available through the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland (SCOTS)/Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE) annual return and internal indicators. A summary of some of our highlights are detailed below. Faults repaired over the year. 384 Faults completed within 7 days for the year. 71% Average days to repair within the target of 7 days. 6.4 Dundee Faults repaired over the year. 251 Faults completed within 7 days for the year. 97.5% Average days to repair within the target of 7 days. 3.2 Perth & Kinross Faults repaired over the year. 1,240 Faults completed within 7 days for the year. 96.7% Average days to repair within the target of 7 days. 2.7 27
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The opportunities available for collaboration greatly exceed our capacity to deliver, and we need to ensure that our collaborations are prioritised and have the appropriate levels of staffing resources and funding, to provide the capacity to be successful. If we expect these major initiatives to be delivered as an add-on to peoples’ busy operational jobs, we run the risk of failure. Therefore we, have implemented an ‘Innovation and Improvement Fund’ of £200,000 to ensure we have the capacity to support more collaboration, through funding projects which will further the objectives of our Business Plan. The past year has been a challenge for the Street Lighting Partnership in retaining and recruiting staff. Like most businesses, it has been difficult to recruit qualified staff leading to shortages in some areas. The strength in the Partnership arrangement has been evident in the ability to flexibly deploy staff, between Council areas, where resources have been required - rather than have gaps in service provision, if these services were ‘standalone’ functions within Councils. We acknowledge challenges in delivery within Angus Construction Operations. There is a desire to build on the long-standing collaborative arrangement between both parties to address the challenges of reducing budgets and also to address some concerns around the service delivery. A working group consisting of Senior Officers from both organisations has been established to progress this agenda. Next Steps: We have identified opportunities for further collaborative service delivery using a criteria-based priority programme of collaborative opportunities, and we will work with our councils to develop an agreed programme of collaborations, for the next 3 years and beyond. The Scottish Government’s National Roads Maintenance Review has stressed the importance of the benefits of a collaborative approach to roads-related functions, Our work in Tayside between our Councils, and now with Amey as the trunk road operator, places us much further ahead than most areas in Scotland, however, there are greater opportunities for fuller integration, and a real opportunity to build on the willingness from the three Councils to pursue greater levels of roads service collaboration. We look to build on the improvements already identified and implemented by the Tri-Council Roads Maintenance Strategy Group (detailed in the Highlights section). We will take forward the collaborative opportunities with our constituent Councils for our Facilities Management (FM) service to focus on expanding by diversifying further into what is known as Hard FM (e.g., building maintenance, etc) in addition to Soft FM (the traditional janitorial and cleaning services currently provided by Tayside Contracts), to achieve cost and efficiency benefits for our Councils. 28
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Continuous Improvement & Performance ‘Think like a customer, act like taxpayer’ Introduction The need to make sure we are delivering excellent public services at the right time, in the right way, and to the right people and communities, has never been greater. The future sustainability of public services requires us all to be more innovative and open to change; we must be more entrepreneurial and innovative, in order to make the best use of the limited resources that we have and provide the best service to our customers and communities. The more efficient and effective we are, the more competitive we will be. Here are some of our highlights during 2022/23: - Recognising the financial pressures on Tayside Contracts and our constituent Councils we engaged with our wider group of senior managers to stress the financial challenges, the pressures ahead, and the steps we collectively need to take to reduce costs and maximise income. From this we established a 3-year Change Plan. Of the targeted £3.5m efficiencies and service reductions, we have achieved £1.7m by the end of 2022/23 with an additional £2.8m income generated during the year. The following examples highlight how we achieved these results. At the start of 2022/23 we reduced the number of funded posts on our Facilities Services Division (FSD) Establishment by 193 posts, reducing labour costs in 2022/23 by £1.35m. We were able to achieve these reductions through robust vacancy management, thereby ensuring our existing employee’s jobs were not at risk as we reduced the posts. During the year we continued to manage labour costs in accordance with our Establishment Control and Vacancy Management Policy to achieve the highest level of slippage possible without unduly risking service failure. Our full Establishment during the year totalled 3,270 posts, however, only 3,069 of these posts were occupied. These proactive measures carried out provided some mitigation of the significant pay costs and inflation increases that the organisation and to constituent Councils had to incur during the year. 29
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Casestudy Perth & Kinross Dundee Shared with Amey PLC (North East Trunk Road operator) Shared between *DRMP & Street Lighting Partnership and now Dundee City Council Construction Services Shared between PRMP, Street Lighting Partnership, Perth Housing repairs team and Amey PLC Shared with *PRMP and sharing depot space to facilitate a potential review of waste management services on the adjacent Perth & Kinross Council site We moved to a more modern and better located site in Aberfeldy. Gritting routes have been redesigned, improving efficiency, as we no longer need temporary cabins and loading equipment to be situated at satellite depots. P&K Council Grounds Maintenance team are also sharing the site, freeing up their previous location for commercial rent. Shared with Angus Council Waste Management and Roads Infrastructure teams. Shared between Street Lighting Partnership, Angus Education Mini Bus Services and Amey PLC (Trunk Road, Contractor). Angus Carnie Depot Arbroath Continuous Improvement by Building Rationalisation and Sharing Buildings Our Business Plan gave a commitment to ‘Make Best Use of Our Assets’ in our drive to reduce costs. We targeted our property portfolio, and through working with Councils and other partners, we have extended our sharing of facilities (and sharing costs) in our offices and depots across Tayside. The following summarises activities: Forfar Depot Fairmuir Depot Marchbanks Depot Blairgowrie Depot Ruthvenfield Depot Blair Atholl to Aberfeldy move The net effect of reducing our building footprint, and sharing accommodation and costs with partners, will reduce our annual costs for property by £500k per annum. *DRMP = Dundee Roads Maintenance Partnership *PRMP = Perth Roads Maintenance Partnership 30
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Casestudy Casestudy Sharing Headquarters Accommodation and Sharing Costs Investment in New Weighbridges Delivering Partnering and Efficiency Opportunities These weighbridges, replaced end of life weighbridges at each site, increasing reliability and thus availability, but also offering the facility to access weighbridge information ‘real time’ remotely allowing management staff to carefully manage winter de-icing stock levels through specialist software to give a better public service. This facility is of huge benefit given all three sites are now shared with the Trunk Road operator AMEY, and allows shared In March 2023, significant changes were made within our Headquarters at Contracts House, following the successful implementation of a ‘Home & Hybrid Working Policy’, using learning from the COVID pandemic, where homeworking became much more common. This resulted in Contracts House having spare capacity, and following a review, we decided we could accommodate both our existing staff within Contracts House as well as operational staff from the adjacent Fairmuir Depot office i.e. Dundee Roads Maintenance Partnership (DRMP) and Dundee Street Lighting Partnership (DSLP), into the Contracts House building. By rationalising the office space and people from two buildings into one, this not only enabled Tayside Contracts to make significant savings in running costs by reducing its asset portfolio by one building, but also enabled the vacated office building to be occupied by Dundee City Council’s Construction Services, which allowed them to relocate from their unsuitable existing accommodation, and avoid them incurring substantial costs to refurbish their building or relocate elsewhere. 31 As part of our ongoing investment in plant and equipment to maximise efficiency, three new operator-free weighbridges were installed in Arbroath, Forfar and Dundee during 2022/23. stock utilised by both parties to be correctly allocated to each end user.
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Casestudy School Meal Review and Action Plan Following a review of our school meals service, an Action Plan was developed in partnership with our constituent Councils, to increase the uptake of school meals to support the Scottish Government’s agenda to tackle poverty, reduce childhood obesity and support learning, through school meals. Daily average meal uptake was significantly impacted by the Covid pandemic, however 2022/23 saw an encouraging and continued steady recovery in meal uptake, heading towards pre Covid levels, and - in the case of primary uptake - exceeding these levels. Average daily meals increased by 14% over the year, as the following charts demonstrate. Part of our Action Plan was a more visible presence on social media, including a regular electronic newsletter for parents and pupils. The following positive feedback shows the impact of this new development: ‘I just wanted to let you know that I think your recent newsletter is excellent. Clearly lots of research has been done surrounding food and nutrition. Teachings/language including ‘good’ or ‘healthy’ and ‘bad’ or ‘unhealthy’ options and age- appropriate explanations of eating in moderation and how certain foods help and fuel the body. The visual menus are a fantastic idea and may help my child to look forward to picking her meals and encourage her to eat what she has chosen. It’s lovely that the research is being put into practise resulting in old beliefs and habits dying out. Ultimately resulting in a positive change and healthier children.’ 32
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Transport/Fleet Performance Maintaining High Standards for Reliable Service Delivery 2022/23 was another outstanding year from the Fleet Maintenance team maintaining their performance well above the national average performance. This not only demonstrates a high level of performance it also provides the assurance that a reliable fleet is managed and maintained to meet the needs of our vehicle users. The annual test pass rate for 'first time pass' was 97.2%, this remains an exceptionally high score, compared to the national average of 89.15%. Our high score at annual test is attributed to regular staff training, good workshop practice, regular vehicle inspections and quality control checks on maintenance staff. Currently Tayside Contracts Operator Compliance Risk Score remains at ‘G00’ for both Roadworthiness and Traffic which is the best score that can be achieved and has never been below this rating since the introduction of the system in October 2012. 33
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CasestudySupporting our People and Tackling Absences Through our Wellbeing Strategy National data has highlighted significantly higher levels of absence in workplaces across the UK. The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that 2022, saw the highest level of working days lost due to sickness or injury across all employment sectors, since 2004. The Improvement Service National Benchmarking Overview Report published in March 2023 highlighted that staff absence levels were the highest ever reported for local authorities in Scotland. A recent survey by ACAS found that the mental health of nearly half (47%) of British workers has suffered due to the cost-of-living crisis. Tayside Contracts values the contribution of its employees and recognises that their health, motivation and wellbeing is essential to the delivery and maintenance of quality services to the community. We believe that supporting, encouraging and enabling employees to maintain a healthy balance between their work and other interests and responsibilities in their life is the core principle underpinning our Wellbeing Strategy. The top ten reasons for sickness absence within Tayside Contracts for 2022/2023 are detailed below: Stress has moved to the top reason for sickness absence in 2022/2023. Stress, work-related stress and depression now account for 43% of the total days lost through sickness absence. Several initiatives have been identified as part of Tayside Contracts Wellbeing Strategy and Action Plan which aims to promote and encourage good physical and mental health as well as providing support mechanisms to help deal with physical and mental health problems. During 2022, we teamed up with the expert mental health organisation ‘Headtorch’ to roll out training on mental health in the workplace to all managers and employees. All managers were invited to attend online training called Headtorch Aware. This was designed to provide them with the skills to better understand mental health and how this can impact on them and their teams. Following this success, we moved our focus to providing training to our front-line employees through ‘Head Start’- a televisual online learning programme which is an introduction to mental health with hints and tips on how employees can look after their own mental health and wellbeing, as well as spotting the signs that others around them might be struggling and what they can do about that. Since February 2022, approximately 1,100 employees have completed HeadStart online training. cont/... 34
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Managers within Tayside Contracts continue to utilise the Work-Related Stress Policy and associated risk assessment and action plan templates to identify, address and ideally prevent stress-related absences. Tayside Contracts also continues to refer employees for counselling through its occupational health provider. It is extremely encouraging to note that the since December 2020, stress, depression, and anxiety-related absences have reduced by 10%. Scottish Mental Health First Aid training was delivered during the year, giving delegates general information surrounding mental health and allows them to develop an understanding which will help them remove the stigma and fear of dealing with employees who may be experiencing poor mental health. We introduced an Employee Benefits Platform in March 2023 which is designed to improve employees physical, financial and mental wellbeing. The platform gives employees access to lifestyle savings, an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), Your Care, Cycle to Work Scheme, Home and Electronics and in the future, we will introduce; car leasing, providing access to brand new, affordable fuel-efficient cars and a Salary Sacrifice Shared Cost Additional Voluntary Contribution (AVC) scheme. It also includes access to confidential external support via the 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme and Your Care, which is a dynamic wellbeing platform offering a range of personal, emotional, and financial wellbeing tools. 35
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CasestudySocial Media Performance for 2022-23 With the significant shift towards social media as the main communications means for millions of people, we have focussed on developing or approach to ensure that Tayside Contracts is maximising the benefits from engaging with employees, stakeholders and the public across multiple social media platforms. The following analytics overview provides examples of the effectiveness of our social media campaigns, audience engagement, and overall social media presence. It provides valuable insights that will guide our decision- making and help to optimise our future social media strategies. Followers 2,022 Facebook Jobs Account lifetime March 2020 171,015Reach The highest reaching posts were for the pre- launch of the Apprentice Roadworker applications in March 2023. These initiatives and their successful reach supports the organisation tackling the challenges we are facing with recruitment 36,027 Followers 447 Facebook Account lifetime March 2020 Reach The highest reaching post in the last 90 days of 2022 was the School Meals Parents Information Newsletter, which also had the highest ‘reactions’. This is part of our approach to promoting school meals to parents and pupils. Tayside Contracts’ Procurement Team attending the ‘Meet the Buyer’ event received the highest number of comments, which were all positive. 36
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(previously known as Twitter) Followers 1,536 The top tweets were for the School Meals Parents Information newsletter and the Scottish Apprentice Week. Linkedin Followers 155 Account lifetime April 2022 Instagram Followers 153 Account lifetime August 2022 Youtube Channel Subsribers 119 Channel lifetime April 2018 37
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YEAR 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 2022/23 ORGANISATIONAL % DAYS LOST 5.9% 6% 6.2% 3.6% 5.9% 6.4% Despite all the actions we have taken, the recruitment challenges Tayside Contracts, (and employers in the UK and indeed globally), faced in 2021/22 have continued into 2022/23. During 2022/23, the percentage of days lost due to sickness absence for the organisation as a whole was 6.4%, an increase of 0.5% compared to 2021/22. This resulted in the organisation failing to achieve our Business Plan Performance Indicator of 6.1%. This is the first time we have not met this target. Tayside Contracts continues to explore all available options in relation to improving absence rates and managing this cost area. Employee turnover for the organisation as a whole during 2022/23 was 14.5%, an increase of 1.6% on the previous year and 3% higher than the KPI target. Our turnover is at its highest level in the last ten years: Financial Year 2013/ 14 2014/ 15 2015/ 16 2016/ 17 2017/ 18 2018/ 19 2019/ 20 2020/ 21 2021/ 22 2022/ 23 Turnover (%) 9.1 10.6 11.8 10.8 11.6 12.3 11.5 9.6 12.9 14.5 Issues with high turnover are not confined to Tayside Contracts. Price Waterhouse Cooper’s national benchmarking study (June 2023) noted that, ‘the competition for talent and the risk of high employee churn persists. Even amid recessionary pressures, rising interest rates, and record-high inflation, employee turnover increased in 2022.’ Tayside Contracts has been addressing the ongoing employee turnover concerns through our Recruitment and Retention Strategy Action Plan and we continue to explore other ways to improve employee turnover and retention. However, despite this intense activity, high turnover rates continue to remain a challenge, with pay and conditions being identified as the main reason for people leaving the organisation. 38
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Next Steps: We have been reviewing our organisational structure as per of our ‘Future Thinking’ programme with a view to significantly reshaping our management and support services costs and will be bringing forward proposals to ensure the organisations structure is fit for purpose. Positive and evident progress has been made with the Wellbeing Strategy Action Plan, especially in relation to manager and employee mental health awareness training and policy development. There is some evidence that these interventions may have reduced stress, depression and anxiety related absences in 2022, but further work is required around this, and benchmarking conducted, before any formal conclusions can be drawn. Investors in People (IIP) re-accreditation IIP is a nationally recognised standard for people management, defining what it takes to lead, support, and manage people effectively to achieve sustainable results. To ensure we maximise the benefits for our employees, and maintain our IIP accreditation, we have developed an IIP Action Plan, which summarises where the organisation believes it currently sits, and where it aspires to be to achieve its organisational ambition. This includes a comprehensive survey of all our employees taking place in the latter half of 2023. Our focus on technology has great potential to release capacity, with transformation projects in areas such as mobile working, working from home, streamlining former paper-based processes, and moving to ‘digital by default’ – all of which are capable of delivering great improvements. During 2022/23, we invested in new systems for Financial Management and Human Resources and are implementing these to deliver both productivity and efficiency improvements. 39
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Communities, Councils & Customers ‘Creating community wealth’ Introduction As one of the largest employers in the area with a firm commitment to corporate social, ethical and environmental responsibility, we are in a strong position to support the wider ambitions of our constituent Councils and our communities, to enhance the lives of everyone in Tayside. As part of its Business Plan’s objectives, Tayside Contracts stated its commitment to support the wider strategic aims of our constituent Councils, and their respective Community Planning Partnerships, to share in delivering the Councils’ strategic aims around community empowerment; equality and fairness; economy and education; employability; tackling climate change and building community wealth. Here are some of our highlights during 2022/23: - Tayside Contracts provides a range of services, which could potentially be beneficial to local community groups and charities, Examples include: - Community Empowerment Carrying out roads/footway improvements and repairs to community facilities such as community hall car parks, or a local pathway. Providing Catering for a community/charity event. Provision of signage via our Sign Shop for a range of community needs. Provision of Traffic Management for a community event. In January 2023, we successfully launched our Community Fund, where we support local community and charity groups, by carrying out these types of works for these groups. The costs are paid by the Community Fund, with the income for the Fund provided by Brakes, (one of our major national food suppliers), as part of their own community benefit commitment. In 2022/23 we approved nine Fast Track (lower cost) applications. We have also had a positive 27 applications for full funding (up to £3,000) for community groups across Tayside. We were able to say ‘yes’ to the vast majority of applications – some examples of successful applications were: - 40
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The following comment from one of the successful applicants shows how much this help means to local groups: “Thank you for the fantastic news – the works will make a significant difference to us, and more importantly the children and families who use the service!” In 2022 we achieved recognition as an approved official Young Person’s Guarantee Employer which is a commitment to connect every 16 to 24 year old in Scotland to an employment opportunity. This shows the commitment the organisation has to developing and engaging with young people. Since June 2022, we’ve attended 12 recruitment events hosted by local employability teams across Tayside. By attending job fairs we’re increasing the public awareness of Tayside Contracts and showcasing our organisation as a local employer of choice. Each job fair is a great way to inform individuals of current job opportunities, answer queries about our roles, the application process and finally to encourage applications. Provision of a pathway round the building for a charity for the elderly in Blairgowrie. Laying a slabbed area for a charity for children with complex needs in Rumbling Bridge. Ground works to help a community garden in Dundee. Seated shelter for a Stroke Club in Montrose. Education and Employability The Tay Cities deal sets out an ambitious agenda to increase employability and skills.in 2022 we teamed up with Council employability teams and Skills Development Scotland to create pathways to give job seekers guidance, training and employment opportunities with Tayside Contracts. We also worked with Developing the Young Workforce (Tay City Deals) to support young people to prepare for work and the transition needed with support from schools, colleges, and our managers. During the year, we participated in the Developing the Young Workforce’s social media campaign ‘#NoWrongPath’ which provides inspiration and reassurance to young people receiving their exam results. The campaign aims to demonstrate that many people in interesting job roles may not have taken a straight, obvious, or traditional path to get there - that there is #NoWrongPath. Tayside Contracts will continue to participate in this annual campaign to promote Tayside Contracts as a local employer of choice. We also attended careers events at Barnardos: Employability4All, Remploy and Jobcentres in Angus, Dundee and Perth, Skills Development Scotland, Tayside Pace Team and held our own event at Street Soccer Dundee. Tayside Contracts’ success in working with partners in employability led to recognition in Remploy’s case study: ‘The importance of working with Living Wage Employers, like Tayside Contracts across Scotland’. ‘We have been working with Tayside Contracts in Dundee, Perth and Angus for the last year. They have been in credibly supportive of our participants and everyone who has secured work with them has loved it. They are a fantastic employer to work with.’ Amy Wilson, Regional Account Manager, Remploy 41
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1 We produced video employee testimonials and now have a Cleaning, Catering, Construction and Transport testimonials published on our YouTube channel. Quotes and photographs have also been published for a Facilities Assistant, Apprentice Roadworkers and Erika and Debbie both School Crossing Patrollers. Weblinks to our employee testimonials are available on our website, Facebook Jobs page and our Indeed employer page. An Apprenticeship webpage is now available on our website highlighting our successful Apprentice Roadworker and Apprentice Mechanic programmes. Casestudy Our Business Plan commits the organisation to work with Councils’ Education Services, as well as local schools and universities, to add value to the education experience, support career paths and positive destinations, and potentially attract a new generation of local talented people to work with us. Tayside Contracts continues to work closely with our constituent Councils’ Education Services, to offer work experience placements - 18 placements were offered during 2022/23. During 2022/23 we attended nine school/career events, delivered talks, and targeted supporting six local schools, working in partnership with Education Services of the three Councils. We worked with Brechin High School, Arbroath High School, Braeview Academy and St Johns High School in Dundee, and Bertha Park and Blairgowrie High School in Perth and Kinross. In addition, we were also invited to attend school career events and attended Arbroath Academy, Brechin Campus, Forfar Academy and Monifieth High School in Angus. Grove Academy and Braeview Academy in Dundee and Blairgowrie High School and Breadalbane Academy in Perth and Kinross. Working with Education Partners to Support Employability Casestudy Tayside Contracts continued to engage with community and further education establishments during 2022/23. One such example of this was John Curran, the Dundee Roads Maintenance Partnership Manager acting as an industry expert assessor for the Engineering Development trust. This involved spending a day assessing eight very well prepared and presented projects at the Tayside region Industrial Cadets assessment day for S2 level pupils held at Abertay University. The event encourages participants to consider future careers in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and cannot run without the support of volunteers with STEM knowledge and the financial support of external industry. The patron of Industrial Cadets is HRH Charles the 3rd and is directly comparable to the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. This positive engagement not only encourages pupils to enter into an engineering profession but also promotes the career opportunities available at Tayside Contracts. Working with Education Partners to Support Employability 42
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Fuel Used (L) Miles Travelled Fuel Spend (£) Overall MPG Year 700.7K 2,000K £992.5K 12.9 2022/23 688.8K 1,919K £761.4K 12.5 2021/22 Climate Change and Sustainability Our first Climate Change Plan was introduced in 2021, setting out how the organisation will move towards net zero, influence others to take action on climate change. Good progress has been made with 12 items in the Climate Change Action Plan, with some progress being made on 16 actions. Transport is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases in Scotland, and reductions in emissions can only be achieved through significant changes to our reliance on fossil fuel powered vehicles and plant. Although there were further miles travelled in 2022/23 compared to 2021/22 by Tayside Contracts (this is heavily dependent on work locations), our overall fuel consumption performance improved by 3.2%. Given that fuel prices increased by 19% over the period, our proactive management of consumption and driver behaviour offset the impact of fuel increases in the year by £31k. This has also benefitted the environmental impact of our fleet by reducing our average CO2 emissions per mile from 1.0 to 0.9. In 2022 the Transport Services Team took the lead in reducing vehicle idling across Tayside Contracts with our “TURN IT OFF" campaign. This campaign is aimed at encouraging drivers to turn off their engines while parked, with the goal of reducing emissions, improving air quality, and achieving substantial savings. The campaign messaging was based on the following key facts, and was a key part of the reduced fuel consumption in 2022/23 TURN IT OFF! 43
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Casestudy Over the last 10 years, the Street Lighting Partnership teams have been working to install LED lighting throughout the Council areas drive down energy consumption and reduce the Councils’ carbon footprints. Our teams have achieved the following by the end of 2022/23. 68% decrease in energy consumption since 2012. Dundee each travelling 5,000 miles. 1,269 diesel cars = travelling to the moon and back Over 6.3m diesel road miles 63% decrease in energy consumption since 2012. Angus 47% decrease in energy consumption since 2012. Perth & Kinross vehicle miles 33 million fridges for a year 148,500 Operating A key element in our transition to net zero will be to move our 250 commercial vehicle fleet away from dependency on diesel fuel. In 2022/23 we developed a strategy for the introduction of alternative fuelled vehicles and plant to Tayside Contracts fleet, which was approved by the Joint Committee in November 2022. We worked with constituent Councils, and partners including the Energy Savings Trust and TACTRAN to explore electric and hydrogen fuelled alternatives for our fleet, including sharing electrical charging points at depots. We now have 27 Electric Vehicle (EV) small panel vans on the fleet and a further 6 on order. During the production of road construction materials at Collace Quarry, raw aggregates are heated through a drying drum. We switched the fuel for this heating process in the asphalt plant from the heavy polluting diesel to a cleaner burning liquid gas (LPG) in May 2019. Since that time up to March 2023 this switch has reduced the Quarry’s emissions by over 1.7 million kilograms of carbon dioxide. This is equivalent to: Street Lighting Partnership Leads the Way with Tackling Climate Change In totality, across the three council areas, we have achieved a saving of 13,500 tonnes of CO2 This is the equivalent to; from CO2 emissions 81,000 trees 44
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Casestudy Health data shows that over one third of pupils in Primary 1 in the most deprived areas of Scotland are overweight and at risk of obesity. Dundee is one of the Scottish Government’s Early Adopter areas for its ‘Whole Systems Approach to Diet and Healthy Weight’. Tayside Contracts was part of a Multi-Agency Health Weight Partnership, including Dundee City Council Children and Families Service, NHS Tayside’s Public Health Directorate, working together to tackle this issue. In October 2022, Rosebank Primary School launched their Best Foot Forward initiative which links with the ambitions of the local Child Healthy Weight Strategy ‘Helping Tayside’s Children and Young People to Feel Great and Ready to Learn’. The ‘Best Foot Forward’ was a whole school approach to an inclusive and health promoting environment, which aims to help families take positive steps towards a healthier and sustainable lifestyle. Families were invited to join the 15-week programme with a series of interactive workshops to develop knowledge around all aspects of health and wellbeing, including screentime, sleep, regular physical activity and the development of a healthy eating and snack policy whereby only fruit and water could be consumed as snacks during the school day. Tayside Contracts delivered practical cookery sessions, including a ‘Fakeaway vs Takeaway’ event. We provided recipes for batch cooking and freezing and gave advice on healthy snacks at home. Health and Wellbeing Best Foot Forward Project – Rosebank Primary School 45 We were proud to have contributed to this fantastic initiative, which should have substantial community benefit. It is especially encouraging to note that school meal uptake at Rosebank Primary School has increased since the start of the project with average meals increasing from 127 to 174. The Best Foot Forward project was nominated for an award at the Dundee City Council OSCA’s (Outstanding Service & Commitment Awards) in June 2023 for ‘Improving Services through Partnership Working’. Norrie, our Menu Development Chef sharing his skills with parents
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Casestudy Throughout 2022/23, Tayside Contracts has been involved in delivering various phases of the Broughty Ferry to Monifieth Active Travel Route Upgrades. The works, which have a total budget of £18million, aim to deliver transformational improvements for active travel in the area, creating a high quality and fully inclusive walking and cycling route, with associated public realm, biodiversity and landscape enhancements. The project, all of which falls within the National Cycle Route 1, spans from Castle Approach, Broughty Ferry to Marine Drive, Monifieth. The section of route going westwards from Castle Approach to Douglas Terrace was also upgraded, as part of the Broughty Ferry Flood Protection Scheme. Tayside Contracts are proud to have assisted Dundee City Council as one of the contractors of choice in the delivery of this exciting and ambitious project. Following an open tender procurement process, the Dundee Road Maintenance Partnership (DRMP) have delivered two phases of the project. Phases 2A, a value of £1.7M, was delivered in conjunction with supply chain partners Kilmac Construction and most recently, Phase 3, a value of £800k was delivered using internal resource. These works have allowed the entire workforce to demonstrate the breadth of skills, knowledge and adaptability within the DRMP, given the extremely varied and complex work types involved. Future phases are planned throughout 2023/24 and Tayside Contracts will seek to assist further in the delivery of this project. Broughty Ferry to Monifieth Active Travel (BFMAT) Route Upgrades 46
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Tayside is recognised - both nationally and internationally - as a place that produces the finest food and drink, and as the largest catering organisation in the Tayside area providing over 5 million meals to schools and communities every year, we are committed to using as much locally sourced produce as possible. Economy Supporting Local Food Producers We also established a dedicated webpage to help local food producers become suppliers to Tayside Contracts – click here Market research is conducted prior to any procurement exercise to engage with local suppliers. We hold a database which records all supplier enquiries to maximise opportunities to local enterprises where possible. We hold our annual Meet the Buyer event in conjunction with the Supplier Development Programme to network with local suppliers. We also worked with Perth & Kinross Councils Good Food Project, Eat and Drink Dundee to share and collaborate with groups such as Nourish Scotland, GrowBiz Scotland, to attract local suppliers. 47 meals; however, we are looking to extend that to ensure that we continue to provide sustainable, high quality, healthy, nutritious, and delicious meals, whilst generating more income for local businesses. The event was very successful with presentations by our suppliers Total Produce, Brakes, Campbells Prime Meats, looking to take on local producers as part of their supply chain. Tayside Contracts in partnership with NFU Scotland, hosted an event in November 2022 that brought together local food producers across Tayside, to explore working together to support Tayside businesses, and increase the levels of locally grown and produced food served in school lunches. Several local food producers already supply produce for school and community In addition:
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Casestudy We are proud to have work in partnership with the Dundee Bairns Fun and Food Programme since April 2016. During that period, we have supported the provision of more than 300,000 meals to children who need additional support, across the city of Dundee. Children who received and indeed rely on free school meals during school term time, often have no such provision during school holiday periods. It was this that inspired the aptly named Dundee Bairns Fun & Food Programme, with our involvement. The activities extended to include the provision of a Tea Club which is an after-school homework club that runs between 3.30 and 5.00pm and includes a 2-course hot evening meal provided by the hard-working Tayside Contract catering teams. We have been able to evidence that, even within a short time frame, an after-school study club with a hot meal provided, can have a positive impact on attainment, pupil perceptions of health and happiness, and teachers’ perceptions of pupil confidence and engagement with learning. Genna Miller of Dundee Bairns pictured below stated: ‘I would like to thank you and all of the staff at Tayside Contracts for the provision of our Tea Club meals. The 15 projects we delivered to over the course of the 5 month period were very grateful for the meals, which fed children in football clubs, homework clubs, and 'cosy spaces' around the city who might not have otherwise had access to a hot evening meal.’ Supporting Dundee Bairns 48
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Although good progress has been made with some Climate Change actions, several others are still in progress. We had to prioritise attention to dealing with challenges, and major supply chain shortages in essential goods and services. In addition, lengthy recruitment challenges in filling vacant posts which were essential for taking forward many of the actions in the Plan also contributed to implementation delays. All key vacant posts have been filled, so we are in a much better position to progress the actions that have not advanced as far as originally explained. Despite our actions to attract local food producers to become suppliers for Tayside Contracts, the uptake of local producers providing to Tayside Contracts has not reached our target level for 2022/23. Further engagement is needed to understand the barriers to local producers, and how these can be overcome. Next Steps: We are reviewing our Procurement Strategy to ensure that sufficient weight is given to fair work, local producers, community benefit and procurement equality duties. We will support this by reviewing our community benefit clauses on our tender documentation, considering best practice from other organisations - to demonstrate the power of effective procurement to lever social, economic and environmental benefits to the local community, including building local community wealth. Our Training team is currently working on a project with the three Councils’ employability teams, to pull together the employability information relevant to Tayside Contracts (such as the various schemes available, funding available, and contact/application details) into a central resource to share with our managers, so they can take advantage of the opportunities to provide learning/training experiences for people needing employment support within the Tayside area. This will be available in 2023/24. 49
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The table below details the target KPIs for 2022/23 from our Business Plan and the actual results. 50 (not achieved)
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If you require any further information or you would like this document in another language or format, please contact communications@tayside-contracts.co.uk