Barnet UNISON Press Release: STOP the Privatisation of our Regulatory Services
Barnet UNISON Press Release: 15 February 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: STOP the Privatisation of our Regulatory Services
Barnet UNISON is backing Avaaz petition which is states:
“We are concerned that Barnet Council is about to hand over its Regulatory Services (in particular the Environmental Health and Trading Standards services) to a private company. Councils have statutory responsibilities to monitor the private sector in order to ensure the health and safety of their residents. The current high- profile national public-health scandal about processed foods emphasises that private companies do not adequately monitor their own activities, leaving the public at risk. If Barnet Council is allowed to privatise these services, it will set a dangerous precedent for other councils. We call for an immediate stop to the privatisation of council Regulatory Services throughout the country.”
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_the_privatisation_of_Regulatory_Services/?tFMrBab
John Burgess, Branch Secretary said: The recent national scandal concerning meat processing is threatening to expose a catalogue of failures by food manufacturers to monitor their own suppliers. The lack of robust regulation & monitoring of a critical service strikes a chord with our own concerns about our council’s determination via the One Barnet Programme to outsource key critical regulatory services, such as Environmental Health & Trading Standards . We are asking our members and their families, residents to sign this petition. Furthermore we asking all citizens of the UK to sign the petition in order to stop the privatisation of regulatory services now before it is too late.
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Notes to Editors.
Contact details: John Burgess Barnet UNISON on 07738389569 or 0208 359 2088 or email: john.burgess@barnetunison.org.uk
Links
1. Barnet Council leader not worried by One Barnet outsourcing court case
2. Barnet’s ‘easyCouncil’ faces judicial review over outsourcing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/22/tory-council-challenge-high-court
3. Fear and loathing in Barnet
4. UNISON report on Environmental Health Services Summary report ; Full survey report Statistical report
5. UNISON report on Trading Standards Summary report; Full survey report ;Statistical report
Background
Barnet Council is implementing a policy known as the One Barnet Programme, sometimes referred to as the ‘Commissioning Council’. This mass privatisation policy is designed for the Council to divest itself of responsibility to deliver services to its residents.
The first One Barnet project known as New Support Customer Services Organisation (NSCSO) will be for back office services such a Finance, Revenues & Benefits, Estates, IT, HR & Payroll etc, it is estimated to be worth up to £750 million.
It involves approximately 620 council workers. There is a high probability that the winning bidder will not deliver these services from Barnet so there is a high risk of significant redundancies at the moment of transfer.
This contract was awarded to either Capita at the Barnet Council Cabinet Resources Committee on Thursday 6 December 2012.
The second One Barnet project is known as Development & Regulatory Services (DRS) which includes the following services:
Trading Standards & Licensing, Land Charges, Planning & Development, Building Control & Structures, Environmental Health, Highways Strategy, Highways Network Management, Highways Traffic & Development, Highways Transport & Regeneration, Strategic Planning & Regeneration, Cemeteries & Crematoria.
This contract, worth up to £275 million pounds, will be awarded to Capita Symonds or EC Harris at the Barnet Council Cabinet Resources Committee on 8 January 2013.
This involves approximately 300 council workers
Both contracts are for ten years with an option to extend for a further five years.
UNISON’s position
Over the past four years UNISON has published over 40 detailed reports on the Future Shape/EasyCouncil/One Barnet mass privatisation programme.
Our message has remained clear.
Provide a level playing field and follow good practice and include a fully funded in house service improvement model to run alongside the procurement process.
Our proposal: In-house model
There are a number of examples of where Councils have followed this approach to good effect. Most recently Edinburgh City Council considered the potential for using private contractors to deliver a wide range of its services. It embarked on separate procurement processes for 3 blocks of services utilising the Competitive Dialogue process in an attempt to obtain the best offers available from the market. At the same time in-house teams were asked to work on service improvement plans or Public Sector Comparators, so that when it came to the award of contract, the Council could be sure that the services it was purchasing would genuinely optimise its use of scarce resources. In the end the Public Sector Comparators proved to be more attractive than any of the external offers and no contracts were awarded.
For a fuller explanation click here
Barnet UNISON has produced a list entitled “100 PLUS reasons why One Barnet is high risk and bad for residents and services” which you can view here