Appendix 1 - Ris Review
Argyll and Bute Council · 18 December 2025
Back to Environment, Development and Infrastructure Committee — 18 December 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Appendix 1 Roads and Infrastructure Service Review – Priority Workstream Update Organisational Design and People Priority Improvement Action Rationale and Detail Status Progress Update Organisational Reshape: Develop and implement a revised organisation structure for RIS This action will deliver Stage 3 of the RIS Review process and is fundamental to enabling the success of all other improvement related activities and will form the foundations for a refreshed Roads and Infrastructure Service. The existing organisation structure does not provide optimal levels of clarity and accountability and in some areas, it appears to lack the capacity required to effectively respond to near-term challenges. The need for change to the Management structure is not universal with some teams requiring only limited change. In progress Phase 1: Completed early September with service manager appointments. Phase 2: Phase 2 of the reshaping aligns all staff into the new structure for the service. While the structural realignment is quite significant the number of staff directly affected by changes to their post from the structure is relatively small. The reshaping has involved the development of a number of new job descriptions. At the time of drafting this update these are undergoing job evaluation. It is anticipated that formal engagement and consultation with the affected staff and the Joint Trade Unions will begin early in the New Year with the reshaping concluding as soon as possible thereafter, allowing sufficient time for statutory consultation and a robust selection process.
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Waste Post PPP Arrangements: Drive forward the section and development, by the Council, of the organisational arrangements to come into place for waste disposal at the end of the current PPP contract. With the current PPP contract expiring in September 2026, a key area of focus is to increase the pace at which the organisational arrangements that will be required after the end of the contract are developed and put into operation. In the short-term additional capacity is being added to the Council’s existing waste team through external specialist consultants. As the future arrangements become clearer the capacity of the Council’s waste team will be further reviewed. Detailed update provided through the “Waste Update” Report being considered by Committee today. A full update on this area of work is being provided to EDI Committee today via the Waste Update Report. At the time that the RIS Review Programme moved into implementation earlier this year the Waste post-PPP arrangements where a major area of activity due to risk and timeline. Given the significant focus to date, initially through the RIS Review implementation, this work has now moved on significantly. This work is overseen by Officers through the Waste Strategic Change Board and will be included in future Waste Updates to EDI Committee, it is therefore planned that further updates on this workstream will not be provided through the RIS Review Update and the work be managed through the business as usual management arrangements within the Roads and Infrastructure Service. Infrastructure Capital Programme Management: Improve consistency of approach to project management. While there is a strong emphasis on managing the design and construction phases of projects, the process of business case development and assurance within RIS can be improved and strengthened and brought into better alignment with the Council wide approach of the Project Pipeline and adoption of best practice through the Treasury Green Book business case approach. In Progress The new organisation structure for RIS creates a dedicated project and programme management team by bringing together a range of colleagues who are in existing project management roles into a single team. Bringing together a dedicated project management team is intended to lead to improvements in standardisation of project management practice and improved project governance, including improvements in the consistency of approach to business case development.
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Two Officer led programme boards have been established within RIS under the leadership of the Head of Service to strengthen project governance and delivery assurance. The first of these boards focusses on strategic service change projects, with the second board focussing on strategic capital projects. Going forward all future projects will produce either a Project Mandate or Full Business Case and go through robust assurance processes prior to projects commencing. This level of rigour has not, unfortunately been consistently applied across all projects in the past. Respond to Reduced Roads Asset Maintenance Budget: Review the impact of the reduction in roads maintenance capital budget on the overall staffing structure - with particular emphasis on the impact of front-line operational staffing (due to existing approach to capital This action was initially developed in response to the anticipated significant reduction in the level of capital funding for 2025/26. The decision at Council to award a capital budget of £10m for roads reconstruction in 2025/26 has reduced the urgency of this action. However, with ongoing pressure to Council budgets and no guarantee that the current level of capital funding can be maintained in future years, it remains necessary for the service to review how a potential future reduction in the capital budget would impact on the current operating model and balance between activities delivered by in-house resource and those delivered by contractors. Timeframe to be aligned with timetable for wider Council Savings and Budgets options process The requirement, or otherwise, for this piece of work is dependent upon level set for the roads capital maintenance budget in future years.
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recharging of a proportion of operative staff time). Helensburgh Waste Transfer Station (WTS) Project: subject to project gateway review to re- baseline the benefits in the context of whether it can offer opportunities to increase efficiency in waste collection and resilience in waste disposal of sufficient magnitude to justify the required capital investment. The proposed Helensburgh WTS is no longer required to ensure the Council has a bio-ban compliant disposal solution in this area. The project does however offer benefits in terms of resilience of waste disposal by enabling the Council to bulk waste and therefore being at less risk if it has to take waste further than at present for disposal. Construction of the WTS may also enable revised and lower cost shift patterns to be adopted by the waste collection teams. However, it is not clear that these efficiency and resilience gains are sufficient to justify £3.6m of capital investment. Complete No further update required. Action closed as complete.
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Roads and Infrastructure Service Review – Priority Improvement Workstream Data, Digital and Customer Priority Improvement Action Rationale and Detail Status Progress Update RIAMS Improvement: Establish cross service project team with involvement from corporate, digital and finance to fundamentally review WDM and Total systems to determine and drive forward a plan to either re- configure it replace both (recognising existing Total product must be replaced due to product soon to become unsupported). Stage 1 and 2 of the review process identified that the core asset and information management system used by the service in relation to roads, amenities and environmental assets is not optimally configured and is not offering the maximum value possible. This system also interacts with a service specific finance system which is coming to its end of life and with the corporate customer relationship management system. This Priority Improvement Action will see these systems reviewed with targeted improvements made to maximise benefit and ensure a replacement for the finance element is in place prior to the expiry of the existing product. This work will include reviewing the opportunities for artificial intelligence to add greater value and enable staff to spend a greater proportion of their time on higher value-added activities. In Progress Finance Module: An alternative product has been sourced, and the council has been advised that the new system will be ready by March 2026. Customer Relationship Management: Work continues improving the customer link through WDM and Oracle. Work is over 40% progressed in relation to the roads fault (pot-hole, street light out, damaged drainage cover etc) reporting system. The main aim of these improvements is to improve the customer journey and update the customer on what stage the logged fault is at. In addition, it will also improve efficiencies within the service as Officers will no longer be required to action duplicate reports from the public. At present updates on logged faults are only available to the first customer logging a fault, the remaining enquiries are then closed as a duplicate enquiry with no further update, this represents a lower standard of customer service than required.
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The improvements will display existing faults allowing customers to see if a fault has already been logged. The customer will have the option to click on the ‘keep me updated tab’ should they wish to be updated. This represents a significant improvement in the level of customer service. Environmental and Land Management: Work continues in this area to improve asset data as a first step to enabling digital management. Moving the management and maintenance of these assets onto a digital platform is a key enabler for future efficiency improvements and the ability to have automated responses with the public (in a similar way to that described above in relation to road faults).
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Roads and Infrastructure Service Review – Priority Workstreams Policy and Procedure Priority Improvement Action Rationale and Detail Status Progress Update Commence program of strategic change to parking and enforcement related activity. A strategic review of parking services and options for change should be developed for consideration by Members as a coordinated package of service changes. Not yet commenced This work has not yet been progressed due to staffing resource challenges and a number of competing priorities. Implement a Package of changes to school transport including ASN transport. Significant financial strain for a number of years has a result of increases in demand. A package of changes will be developed including: • Reviewing the approach to procurement in targeted areas. • Strengthening co-ordination between council services in Education and RIS in relation to planning for the transport requirements of children and young with ASN. A consultant's report on school and public bus transport has been received and is being reviewed by officers. Further information on this and the options arising from it will be brought forward to Committee once available. It is acknowledged that resource challenges have delayed progress with this action. Household Residual Waste Collection Reduction This project has been triggered as part of the RIS Review. This project brings together two existing related but separate projects into a single project. In doing so this project subsumes its predecessors and provides a greater level of aspiration for the outcomes and benefits of the project. The existing projects replaced by this project are: In Progress Following approval of the new Second Bin Policy and Assisted Bin Uplift Policy by EDI Committee in September work has progressed to start a campaign of communicating these changes to residents. The communication campaign also informs residents of the requirement to mark all recycling and domestic refuse bins with the
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1) Second Domestic Bin Review 2) Digitally enabled operational services project house number / name and street name. Key dates in the roll out of this policy are: - Informing via website & social media: February / March 2026. - Information letters / leaflets on uplifted bins that are not clearly marked with address: March 2026. - Bins that are not marked cease being uplifted 1st April 2026. Work is continuing to progress the development of improved digitally enabled back-office systems which will improve the robustness of data and optimise operational planning.
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Roads and Infrastructure Services Review – Priority Workstreams Commercial Opportunities Priority Improvement Action Rationale and Detail Status Progress Update Further review the options for increased commercial activity in the fleet maintenance workshops. Stage 1 of the review reached conclusions in relation to the potential to generate additional income through fleet services. The Stage 2 due diligence did not fully support the conclusion as they did not take account of the local context of Argyll and Bute including our highly rural nature, topography, and long distances between vehicle operating centres (depots). However, opportunities are believed to exist to further review medium to long term options to increase efficiency and / or generate additional commercial income. A further and more detailed review of capacity that involves looking at both existing capacity available for commercial work will be progressed. Not yet commenced Priority work in relation to fleet compliance and actions to reduce fleet maintenance overspend along with capacity challenges within the fleet maintenance service have resulted in this action not yet being progressed. The new organisation structure, currently being finalised, includes greater leadership capacity in relation to fleet management and maintenance that is intended to enable more pro-active and strategic management of the Councils fleet function to be undertaken. Progress the initial review of commercial waste income to ensure that all commercial waste services are charged for the service of The initial work suggests a significant amount of income is not being collected. The data also suggests significant disparities with some businesses paying appropriately while others are not and are in effect in receipt of a service free of charge. In Progress Phase 1 Complete: Resulted in additional £276k income. Phase 2: Involves contacting 4,173. In line with the phased approach set out in the September update correspondence has now
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which they are in receipt. been sent in respect of all known properties. Follow up contacts will commence in January as a high number of non-responses remain. At this stage it is difficult to determine with accuracy the final financial return. In part this is due to time-lags in receiving contact back from potential customers, issues of data cleansing and uncertainty on the final number of new customers and the value of the contracts they will enter into. The financial return on this exercise is being closely monitored.