Joint Scrutiny Committee Report

Report of Head of Housing and Environment Author: Adrian Lear Tel: 01235 422623 E-mail: Adrian.Lear@southandvale.gov.uk Vale Cabinet Member responsible: Andrew Crawford South Cabinet Member responsible: David Rouane Tel: 01235 772134 Tel: 07957 287799 E-mail: Andy.Crawford@whitehorsedc.gov.uk E-mail: David.Rouane@southoxon.gov.uk To: JOINT SCRUTINY COMMITTEE DATE: 14 September 2021

Performance review of Saba (Car Park Operators) 2020 / 2021

Recommendation

That scrutiny committee considers Saba’s performance in delivering the car park operations contract for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 and makes any comments before a final assessment on performance is made.

Purpose of Report

1. To ask scrutiny committee for its views on the performance of Saba in providing the car park operations services in the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.

Strategic Objectives

2. The service contributes to Vale’s strategic objective of building stable finances and South’s strategic objective of openness and accountability.

Background

3. Managing contractor performance is essential for delivering the council’s objectives and targets. Since some of the council’s services are outsourced, the council cannot deliver high quality services to its residents unless its contractors are performing well. Working jointly with contractors to review performance regularly is therefore essential.

4. The council’s process for managing contractor performance focuses on continuous improvement and action planning. The council realises that the success of the framework depends on contractors and the council working together to set and review realistic, jointly agreed and measurable targets.

5. The overall framework is designed to be:

· a way for the council to consistently measure contractor performance, to help highlight and resolve operational issues

· flexible enough to suit each contract, including smaller contracts which may not require all elements of the framework

· a step towards managing risk more effectively and improving performance through action planning.

6. For reasons of consistency and for fairness between contractors, the following is a guide to the assessment of performance criteria against all KPI is included within the councils monitoring criteria.

Percentage Score	0 – 69.9%	70% – 79.9%	80% – 84.9%	85% – 94.9%	95% – 100%
Monitoring Score	1	2	3	4	5
Classification	Poor	Weak	Fair	Good	Excellent

Overview of the Review Framework

7. Evaluating contractor performance has four elements:

i. performance measured against key performance targets (KPI)

ii. customer satisfaction with the total service experience

iii. council satisfaction as client

iv. summary of strengths and areas for improvement, plus feedback from the contractor on the overall assessment and the contractor’s suggestions of ways in which the council might improve performance.

8. The first three dimensions are assessed, and the head of service makes a judgement of classification. The fourth element is a summary of strengths and areas for improvement and includes contractor feedback. Where some dimensions are not relevant or are difficult to apply fairly to certain types of contract, the framework may be adjusted or simplified at the discretion of the head of service.

9. The report includes a summary of officer’s assessment for 2020/21 for each dimension. This is the second year of the current contract directly with Saba previously the council was part of the Vinci 5 Councils Contract. Results from year one are included to allow comparisons to be made against previous year.

10. The value of the contract as of the end of 2020/21, as a fixed annual charge was £479,200 per annum of which the Vale proportion was £246,972 per annum and the South Oxfordshire proportion was £232,228 per annum. The reason for the difference in values is because of the car park ownership at each authority.

11. In addition to these contract cost there are also variable costs which the council has to pay, these cover the additional costs of customers using other methods of payments, such as over the phone, web payments and cover the charges made to Saba for the use of these facilities. These variable costs were Vale £15,642 pa and South £35,947 pa. Additionally, the Vale also paid Saba £6,660 pa for the cleaning of the Charter Car Park, this service has now been taken back in-house and is the responsibility of the in-house cleaning team

12. The contract is to carry out all parking enforcement in accordance with the Road Traffic Regulations Act 1984 (RTRA), issue and process Excess Charge Notices (ECNs)). This includes delivery of the following services:

· maximize income from parking, keeping close accounts of spends, income and reconciliations in line with council policy

· relevant administration of permits and notice processing and administration of Excess Charge Notices (ECNs) under the 1984 (RTRA).

· assisting with internal and external audit reviews and attending committee meetings as required by the council

· dealing with out of hours emergencies in car parks

· maintain excellent customer relations by dealing with emails, first disputes against ECNs, telephone calls in line with relevant legislation.

· forward second and further disputes to the nominated council officer for consideration

· taking and checking all payments by all methods, balance income from the pay and display machines and record the data, deal with queries make any relevant transfers, checking VAT calculations in line with proper accountancy practices and to all car park accounts are accurate and up to date

The main duties and responsibilities of enforcement officers are:

· enforcement is carried out by officers who are responsible for the day to day running of the car parks, issuing ECNs and ensuring the smooth and safe operation of the car parks.

· ensure good customer satisfaction by ensuring that the ticket machines are maintained in good working order which includes replenishing supply of tickets in machine, carry out regular checks and scheduled inspection surveys to identify any potential health and safety issues and signs are clear and graffiti free

· carry out enforcement role effectively and efficiently by inspecting all vehicles to check that a current parking ticket, season ticket or disabled badge is displayed and issue appropriate ECN in accordance with legislation

· act as an ambassador for the council, offering information and assistance to members of the public on a variety of issues (not only car parking). Provide excellent customer service by dealing with confrontational and emergency situations in a polite and efficient manner.

13. The second year (as novated) of the contract has been difficult financially for the council’s car park accounts due to the national restrictions due to Covid-19, which has affected the service. Most council staff have been required to work from home, Saba has continued to provide the back-office service from the offices at Milton Park. Some of the Saba staff were put on furlough during the first lockdown as the councils suspended car park charging from March to June 2020. They returned to work during further national restrictions as the car parks continued to charge for use and needed to be enforced.

14. As a special request from the NHS, the council worked with Saba staff to ensure parking was available and controlled in the council car parks near vaccinations centres (Henley and Abingdon). And also provided free parking to NHS staff between July 2020 and August 2021.

Dimension 1 – Key performance Indicators (KPI)

15. KPIs are recognised as an important element of monitoring the contractor’s performance. The KPI cover those aspects of the service which are most important as a means of benchmarking against which performance can be measured. KPI’s are reported monthly to the council using a traffic light system Green – achieved, Amber - Area for concern and Red – Failure and are discuss at the monthly Client/Contractor meeting. If issues persist, they are referred to the quarterly contract meeting attended by the Head of Housing and Environment and the Saba’s Regional Commercial Manager.

16. KPIs are split into a number of sub-areas which added together make up the KPI score, a table showing the results of all sub-areas with a detailed breakdown of the scores is included within Appendix A.

17. The following table shows the annual results for the KPI for 2020/21 compared to 2019/20.

	Area	2019/20	2020/21	Monitoring Score
KPI 1	Administration	89%	100%	5
KPI 2	Notice Processing	99%	91%	4
KPI 3	Reporting	100%	99%	5
KPI 4	Financial management	100%	100%	5
KPI 5	Disputes Management	100%	71%	2
KPI 6	Authorised Use	100%	100%	5
KPI 7	Customer satisfaction	0%	100%	5
KPI 8	Asset Condition	99%	97%	5
	Average (without mitigation)	86%	94%	4
	Average taking into account the mitigation of KPI 5	86%	98%	5

Table 1

· KPI 5 Dispute Management is highlighted as being ‘weak’. The KPI measures the requirement to forward all draft second and third dispute responses to the council within five working days of receipt. All disputes were responded to but not within the required timescale.

· This failure was due in part to the restricted access of council offices at Milton Park. Saba staff were less efficient than usual because they follow a manual process and all records being held as paper copies. Saba staff were unable to complete this task remotely/at home. Saba provided mitigation as restricted access to the council offices impacted their ability to open post daily with the result that additional time was needed to respond to all disputes. This explanation of failure of the KPI was accepted by council staff as it was due to the council allowing restricted access only to Milton park offices given the advice from government to work from home.

· We are discussing the need for SABA to adopt more agile working practices and this may be introduced when we move to CPE.

Overall KPI performance

18. Based on Saba’s performance (accepting the mitigation put forward by Saba for KPI 5) an overall “average” KPI performance rating score of 98% is achieved. A detailed analysis of performance against the KPI’s and sub KPI’s can be found in Appendix A.

19. The head of service has made a judgement on KPI performance as follows:

KPI judgement	Excellent
Previous KPI judgement for comparison –	Good

Dimension 2 – Customer satisfaction

20. In the year 2019-20 there was no data relating to customer satisfaction collected by Saba. During 2020/21, Saba worked with the council to develop a customer service questionnaire. A link to an on-line survey is attached to correspondence sent out by Saba to car park customers. Officers agreed that the link should be included in general communications only and not be included in any communication directly regarding the issuing of a ticket or the dispute of a ticket. Officers agreed that customer feedback from people issued with an ECN is likely to provide a negative or biased view of the process which would not be a true reflection of customer satisfaction.

21. Saba have not kept records as to the number of correspondence and links to the survey sent out. The number of completed questionnaires has been disappointing, only four returns have been received. Saba is continuing to work with the council’s Community Engagement Officer to try and improve responses from customers for 2021/22.

22. Of the four responses, all agreed Saba were easy to contact and gave clear responses. All responses were replied to within one week and the quality was deemed as good or excellent. One person said that Saba did not understand their needs.

23. The final question on the survey is an open question to allow customers to express their view on the service being provided, as below:

Is there anything else you would like us to know about your customer service experience with us?

While there was only one comment put in this section it was complimentary on the council’s decision to allow motor homes to park in Hales Meadows. The comment was that the customer “Really appreciate the provision of motorhome parking - including overnight. Will enable us to walk into town for a meal”.

24. The questions and results of the customer service questionnaire are included within Annex B.

25. As part of this dimension, officers have taken into account that there were no formal complaints regarding Saba staff logged as part of the council’s complaints procedure during the review period.

26. As the number of customer satisfaction surveys returned is so low, in order to complete this assessment, the head of service has made a judgement based on this limited evidence on customer satisfaction as follows:

Customer satisfaction judgement

Note: disappointing number of returns from customers

Good

Previous customer satisfaction judgement for comparison

Poor

Dimension 3 – Council satisfaction

27. As part of the performance review, officers with direct experience of working with Saba and who frequently interact with them were asked to complete a short questionnaire. This included the staff within the property, legal, finance, parks, facilities, and the technical services business support team. In total 12 questionnaires were sent out and 6 returned.

28. Some staff were dissatisfied with Saba’s invoicing and health and safety. The feedback also showed some officers dissatisfied with Saba’s communication and ability to innovate/’go the extra mile’

29. Based on Saba’s performance an overall council satisfaction rating score of 3.63 has been achieved. An analysis of council satisfaction can be found in Annex C.

Score	<3.0	3.0 – 3.399	3.4 – 3.899	3.9 – 4.299	4.3 – 5.0
Classification	Poor	Weak	Fair	Good	Excellent

30. Based on this performance, the head of service has made a judgement on council satisfaction as follows:

Council satisfaction judgement	Fair
Previous council satisfaction judgement for comparison	Good

Overall assessment

31. Taking into account the performance of the contractor against KPI, customer satisfaction with staff attitude and council satisfaction, the Head of Service has made an overall judgement as follows.

Overall assessment	Good
Previous overall assessment for comparison	Good

Strengths and areas for improvement

32. Annex D also records strengths and areas for improvement relating to the performance of the contractor in this review period. These are the comments received from the returns from the council’s staff who have experience of interactions with Saba.

33. The Head of Service would particularly wish to express her thanks to the Saba staff for working effectively with the councils during the lockdown and continuing to provide an effective service in such unprecedented times.

34. The main areas from comments regarding Saba strengths identified in the review are:

· very good customer relations

· pleasant and helpful both office-based staff and those within the car parks, who are always willing to provide information and identify issues

· very few 2^nd stage disputes

· very good flexibility, reacting to council requests, good customer relations i.e. when Charter car park closed and arranging bays for NHS at short notice

35. The main areas of improvement from comments received are:

· they seem to lack leadership and staff come across as unhappy

· regarding the IT – ability to work in an agile way at the moment there is too much reliance on hard wiring into the office

· the slow research regarding the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system

· suggestions for improving the service to come from Saba, based on knowledge of service delivery (e.g., change in enforcement officer deployment based on usage/ECNs?)

· late invoicing

Financial implications

36. National restrictions, amenities and shops closed, and home working has resulted in the car park income being considerably under budget, however the car park management contract that Saba operates is not based on any financial targets. Saba has provided monthly financial information as required.

Conclusion

37. While the performance rating for 2020/21 has remained the same as in 2019/20 as Good, score improvement have been made in many areas, with the overall percentage against the KPI’s increasing from 86% percent in 2019-20 to 94 percent (mitigated to 98 percent) in 20-21.

38. The main areas where Saba have failed to perform is against dispute management and satisfaction surveys. During the pandemic Saba has frequently raised the difficulties of being unable to work from the office and restricted access to the office has caused them. Officers will be working with Saba to consider solutions to these problems as part of the move to civil parking enforcement during 2021/22.

39. Saba have been helpful in a difficult year responding to requests to undertake different roles for the council as part of its service in response to the Covid 19 pandemic, In Dimension 1, they have achieved an “Excellent” rating in 6 of the KPI’s and a “Good” rating in one other. The KPI that they failed to achieve had mitigating circumstances, due to access issues around being able to enter the council offices during the year.

40. Saba have implemented a customer service questionnaire although both the council and Saba are disappointed with the number of returns received. Council staff including our consultation and community engagement officer are working with Saba on the wording and positioning of the satisfaction surveys to aim to improve the number of responses.

41. The Dimension 3, council satisfaction of Fair may be explained by recent changes to the Saba staff. New staff from Saba and the council need a longer period to build relationships due to remote working enforced by national restrictions.

42. The head of service has assessed Saba’s overall performance as Good for its delivery of the car park management and enforcement services for 2020/21. The committee is asked to make any comments to the Cabinet Member with responsibility for car parks to enable them to make a final assessment on performance by way of an Individual Cabinet Member Decision.

43. If the committee does not agree with the head of service assessment, then this report will be referred to Cabinet for further discussion and a final assessment of Saba’s performance.

Background Papers

None

Annex B – Customer Satisfaction

Annex C – Council staff satisfaction

This assessment allows the council (as a client) to record its own satisfaction with aspects of a contractor’s performance which lie outside key performance targets and customer satisfaction. Each officer with direct knowledge and who frequently interacts with the contractor has been requested to complete this form. Some questions can be left blank if the officer does not have direct knowledge of that particular question.

Contractor / supplier / partner name		Saba
From (date)	1 April 2020		To	31 March 2021

Annex D Strengths and areas for improvement

Strengths	Very good customer relations
	Head of Service would particularly wish to thank the Saba staff for working effectively with us to manage lockdown and the matters which have arisen in connection to COVID 19.
	Good working relationship between Saba and the council’s officers, helpful and always supportive and quick to respond to issues
	Pleasant and helpful both office-based staff and those within the car parks, who are always willing to provide information and identify issues
	The team understand council policy and liaise with officers when complex issues arise
	Very few 2^nd stage disputes
	Very good flexibility, reacting to council requests, good customer relations i.e. when Charter car park closed and arranging bays for NHS at short notice.
	Being flexible and working with council during Covid when we suspended charging and then brought it back in.
	Maintaining effective workforce during epidemic when offices closed

Areas for improvement	Communication within the car parks team re updates from legal etc.
	The implementation of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system so that it works across both council’s areas as there are many examples of it working effectively in other similar areas.
	Suggestions for improving the service based on knowledge of service delivery (e.g. change in deployment based on usage/ECNs?)
	To work with the council to assist council staff in checking if issues have been correctly identified whilst undertaking their patrols to save time in council staff having to visit facilities only to find out that the issue has been corrected.
	Flexible working which does not require staff in office.
	Suggestions as to how to improve the service to be put forward from Saba, like using the data from surveys and putting forward suggestions i.e., changes to permits, improvements to staff deployment and rotas, alternative payment methods i.e., Google pay, Apple pay.
	The number/amount of customer feedback is disappointing and need to consider ways of improving.
	ANPR seems to have taken a long time. This was seen as a way of improving the efficiency as set out in the service delivery plan, but this is still on-going.
	Saba staff trained to update the website

Annex E - Contractor 360° feedback

Contractor’s reaction / feedback on Council’s assessment

Saba believe this this to be a fair and reasonable assessment. Undoubtedly 2020 proved to be unprecedented in the wake of the Covid 19 Pandemic. This presented a number of key impacts and challenges to the team throughout the year, however the team have adapted and worked admirably in my view to continue to deliver a level of compliance management, administration and project management both within and for the car parking areas' for both South and Vale councils.

The home working and the 'bubble system' introduced by the council (for all the right reasons) has tested at times both the system capability and staff resilience significantly. Saba have proactively worked with the council to provide the continuation of services from a remote or reduced resource position, creating external connectivity to internal management systems in order to facilitate the service from a home working environment position. There are still further works to complete if this position was to be sustainable post Covid 19 and if the council decided to promote home working in the future, but steps are being considered in order to accommodate this approach should the council wish to pursue.

The team on the ground have ventured into new territories by assisting the council with manging traffic flow and providing information and support to members of the public throughout the crisis, this has seen more of an ambassadorial role being adopted by the Saba team and one that in my view, with the support of the council, should be continued post Covid.

A number of projects have been successful; the ANPR vehicle project has now completed its full testing and we are ready to start discussions with the council relative to the projects roll-out. Permit management this year has seen a significant increase in administration relative to the Governments free NHS parking mandate, the team have strived to absorb this additional workload without the need to increase resources.

We are set to provide support to the council for Sunday compliance management and have assisted significantly relative to the increase in tariff project. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the council for their support during the pandemic and the subsequent financial discussions and agreement relative to PPN 02/20 and the continuation of support for those functions maintained and delivered. I

n summary, a year that will, likely not repeat itself (hopefully) to the same extent and one that has certainly fully tested the resolve of all of the Saba and council teams, but in my view has demonstrated the determination, dedication and Saba's ability to deliver services to South and Vale councils throughout an unprecedented period, whilst in turn providing new opportunities to consider working practices and service management in the future.

Any areas where contractor disagrees with assessment

None.

What could / should the Council do differently to enable the contractor to deliver the service more efficiently / effectively / economically?

We are currently in discussion with the council on a number of new projects, in order to seek further efficiencies driven by both the pandemic, but also through the opportunity that the CPE project facilitates. These include integrating a new Notice Processing system, which will provide greater functionality for the processing staff and the potential for easier integration of ‘home working’ should this be a council requirement. We are reviewing the potential of an online permit system, to facilitate and bring up to date the service offering for customers & provide for back office efficiencies, plus the roll-out of the ANPR vehicle, which will provide greater coverage, raise the profile for enforcement management services with a view to drive compliant revenues for the council.

Feedback provided by

Andy Marr

Date

20.08.21

Joint Scrutiny Committee Report