Agenda item

The Business Plan document at Appendix 1 to the report is exempt from publication under the provisions of paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended), as it contains commercially confidential information and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Performance and Core Services introduced the 2020-2023 Business Plan of the Barking and Dagenham Trading Partnership (BDTP) and its three trading entities, namely BD Services, BD Together and Londoneast UK Limited (LEUK).

The Cabinet Member referred to BDTP’s main achievements in 2019/20, which included a predicted higher level of dividend return to the Council through securing additional work streams not included in the previous Business Plan, enhancing the skills of the workforce and attracting major educational and other organisations to the LEUK site at Dagenham East. 

The plans for the next three years had a much greater focus than before on external growth, with a commitment to recruit 60 new operatives in BD Services alongside the creation of other new employment opportunities for local people.  BDTP also intended to develop proposals to become more independent from the Council.  The Cabinet Member repeated that the Business Plan would be subject to review due to the COVID-19 pandemic but in its present form it represented a robust benchmark of what BDTP intended to achieve and would allow the Council and BDTP, through the Shareholder Panel, to review arrangements going forward.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Approve the Barking and Dagenham Trading Partnership Business Plan 2020-2023 at Appendix 1 to the report; and

(ii)  Approve Barking and Dagenham Trading Partnership to enter into any procurement related agreement or commitment required to enable the delivery of the Business Plan subject to:

a).  Compliance with relevant procurement regulation

b).  Compliance with relevant procurement law

c).  BDTP’s compliance with its own scheme of delegation

d).  Compliance with state aid rules, and

e).  Any other relevant approvals by the Council which may be relevant or required for the specific project.