Dear Colleagues

I am writing to all of our members in relation to the latest news that Capita has pulled out of the contract talks.

I think it important to set out what has happened in the last six months.

On 31 January 2015 Barnet Council put out an invitation to tender for Education & Skills and School Meals services which you can view here

http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:36188-2015:TEXT:EN:HTML

The contract was advertised & valued from £89 million up to £986 million.

The tender received only three bids from:

1. Capita Business Services Ltd

2. EC Harris LLP

3. Mott MacDonald Ltd, trading as Cambridge Education

However, just before the contract talks began EC Harris LLP mysteriously dropped out and this is what the Council had to say:

“As you are aware, we commenced dialogue with our bidders last week.  One of our bidders (EC Harris) withdrew from the process shortly before dialogue commenced.  Whilst this is obviously disappointing, it is not unusual in this sort of procurement and I’m pleased to report that discussions with the remaining two bidders have been very positive and interesting so far.”

UNISON was concerned about the lack of bidders and sent a report to councillors outlining our concerns and calling for a postponement of the process.

You can read what we had to say here and read the response from the Council here

On Wednesday 24 June staff working for Education & Skills received an email from the Council explaining that:

“Capita Business Services Ltd submitted a letter withdrawing from the procurement process, as they had concluded that this particular opportunity did not provide the right fit with their Entrust business model.”

They went on to add:

“It is recognised that this may raise questions about the lack of competitive tension in the process and the subsequent ability of the Council to test best value from the final tender.  However, it is not unusual for competitive dialogue procurements to end up with a single bidder and there are various robust means through which we can test best value.”

In our meeting on Wednesday 24 June UNISON made it clear to officers that going ahead with the privatisation talks with just one contractor was clearly wrong. Furthermore we added that to go ahead simply reinforces the feelings of the workforce that the Council is wedded to outsourcing even when the market is clearly saying that there is very little interest. Only outsourcing fundamentalists would argue that Best Value can be achieved under these circumstances.

UNISON advised officers we will be submitting an emergency report to Councillors requesting that the process is postponed.

Why the secrecy about the subcontractor?

In our meeting yesterday we were informed global giant ISS will be taking over our Catering Services and that they have been involved in the contract talks all along. UNISON expressed our disappointment this had not been shared with staff in the recent staff briefing or been shared with councillors on the Children’s, Education, Libraries, Safeguarding Committee.

The confirmation of the news about the subcontractor reinforces our concern that low paid members will be targeted to deliver savings which will now have to be split three ways i.e. Barnet Council, Mott Macdonald & ISS.

I will continue to update our members on any new developments.

Please note our next day of strike action is likely to be Wednesday 8 July.