Bracknell Forest and West Berkshire Renew Commitment to the Public Protection Partnership
In March 2021 Wokingham Borough Council decided to leave the shared service of The Public Protection Partnership (PPP). The past twelve months has seen a significant level of cooperation between all the parties to achieve the successful disaggregation of the service. And as of today, 1st April 2022, Wokingham Borough Council are no longer part of the shared Public Protection Partnership which started in 2017.
Today marks a new chapter in the PPP story and both Bracknell Forest and West Berkshire councils remain as committed as ever to the delivery of a shared service of Environmental Health, Licensing and Trading Standards to the residents and businesses of our authority areas.
Our services will still encompass a wide range of areas of responsibility from environmental protection to fair trading, food safety to animal health, housing standards to taxi licensing, and much more.
The priorities of the PPP remain:
- community protection
- protecting and improving health
- protection of the environment
- supporting prosperity and economic growth
- effective and improving service delivery and
- partnership working
There remains within the service a wealth of technical and operational expertise. The new service will be focused on delivering against the priorities of the Councils and the Joint Public Protection Committee as a new two authority service.
The PPP will provide a limited number of services under contract to Wokingham Council which include Trading Standards. This will mean a commitment to work together in the coming years for the common good of all our residents and businesses. These services will be delivered in the spirit of co-operation that has existed since the first shared service in 2010 and the last five years of the PPP.
Cllr. John Harrison, Executive Member for Culture, Delivery and Public Protection at Bracknell Forest Council and Chair of the Joint Public Protection Committee said, “We look forward to continuing in a constructive partnership with West Berkshire to provide high quality and cost-effective public protection services for our residents. The areas we serve have some differing characteristics and needs but we have found that by working in co-operation to share expertise we can allow each council to deliver against its own priorities. Wokingham Borough Council has chosen a different model for delivering some of those services to their residents and as believers in local democracy we respect that choice and have agreed that where it is mutually beneficial the partnership can continue to supply some services to Wokingham Borough as a paying customer.”
Cllr. Hilary Cole, Executive Member: Housing, Strategic Partnerships and Transformation, West Berkshire Council and Member of the Joint Public Protection Committee said, “We are looking forward to continuing working in partnership with Bracknell Forest in the new Public Protection Service for the benefit of all our residents.”
Finally the Joint Management Board and all those involved in the service would like to thank all our colleagues in PPP for all their hard work and commitment since 2017 and wish those colleagues joining Wokingham our best wishes.
