Auditors question amount of free parking in Windsor and Maidenhead

RBWM should reconsider the quantity of free parking it offers in order to ease its financial woes, auditors have said.

At an RBWM Audit & Governance Committee on Tuesday (June 4), Lisa Fryer from South West Audit Partnership (SWAP) came to share the insights from its fourth quarter internal audit of the council.

Parking charges

One of the areas it looked at was maximising parking income for the council. Ms Fryer highlighted that RBWM differed from other local authorities SWAP works with in this regard.

It offers more free parking than those others, and there is not an agreed process for waiting fees, or alternative use of the car parks.

Car parks can be used to host events, for example, which can offer a different source of income.

Other local authorities it works with, said Ms Fryer, charge for parking on Sundays and also charge blue badge holders.

Councillor Mark Wilson (Lib Dem, Eton and Castle) said there was a commercial advantage to not charging on Sunday – it is to encourage people to come into town.

Cllr Gary Reeves (Lib Dem, Cox Green) agreed, saying that the important role of ‘supporting business and residents’ is served by not charging on Sunday and not charging blue badge holders respectively.

Ms Fryer said she accepted that there were complicating factors said she was unsure of the full scope of what was examined.

“I suppose you’d need to look at whether [the car parks in other local authorities] were close to shopping centres and in more detail to make it a fair comparison,” said Ms Fryer.

Also on parking income, Cllr Julian Tisi (Lib Dem, Eton and Castle) noted that the audit did not cover penalty charge notices.

He said that from speaking to people around Windsor, there was an impression of a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ of sorts surrounding parking in the town centre.

“There’s a lot of parking in the evening in the centre of Windsor and little to no enforcement happens there,” he said.

“Is there any reason for that exclusion, and are there any plans in future [for enforcement], or is that not a priority?”

Elizabeth Griffiths, executive director of resources at RBWM, said: “I'm not aware that there's any ‘gentlemen's agreement’ where we’re not penalising people for parking incorrectly. I can't imagine that's a thing.

“I would imagine that it’s more about [the fact that] it costs money to provide enforcement, so you target it at times and places where you’re likely to get the most revenue, and not where it’s not going to be worth chasing up.”

Contract costs

Another major aspect of the audit report was ‘contract weaknesses’ identified last year.

SWAP found the contract register was outdated, and 95 per cent of recorded contracts had one or more key fields missing, including recorded value ‘in the majority of cases.’

The council paid £50,000 or more to 169 suppliers that weren’t included on the register, suggesting unrecorded contracts.

There is also no contract recording instruction for those below £50,000, ‘so it's likely officers wouldn’t be aware that these need to be recorded,’ said Ms Fryer.

Since contract management is a ‘high corporate risk’, Cllr Reves said the fact that recording is not fully completed is ‘concerning’.

“It’s a large amount of money not on the register,” he said.

He further expressed concerns about RBWM having to wait so long for ‘priority actions’, which are set to be deferred from December 31.

Other issues

Other areas of concern for SWAP were ‘high-cost legacy cases’ from disabled facilities, which were previously managed by a contractor.

There was no approved contractor list and contractor selection ‘was being based on staff knowledge.’

In the tree safety department, there is a ‘backlog’ in inspections and those completed were ‘not well recorded’. The register of tree stock is out of date and the tree strategy dated back to 2010.

There were also issues around council transparency, including no timetable set for publication of required information.

‘Key’ information was not published or had ‘several key requirements’ of information missing.

Questions were raised about the rate of improvement and SWAP’s service by Cllr Julian Sharpe (Con, Ascot and Sunninghill)

SWAP has been in place for two years, entering its third – and Cllr Sharpe said things have improved ‘slowly’ and ‘a number of gaps need to be plugged.’

“We should be getting to a stage where virtually all of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and we should be getting to the difficult stuff now,” he said.

Ms Griffiths said she did not think SWAP was aiming for low-hanging fruit – it was aiming for those things it has concerns about.

She said she thought there might be a missing link between the audits and their reviews.

“What we're really hoping to have stepped up this year is to have a forum where concerns raised in these audits can then be regularly reviewed so we don't fall behind on implementing the action,” she said.

Cllr Reeves also raised concerns about why the audit is covering aspects of the ‘place’ section of RBWM’s duties, when 77 per cent of its budget goes towards the ‘people’ aspect (including adult social care, a big cost for the council.)

Place covers grounds maintenance, highways and waste among other things – and Ms Fryer said these are ‘significant costs to the council’, which is why they were selected.

“But I do agree there are contracts across the authority that would be valid areas of audit,” she said.