North Somerset Lib Dem News
return to headline pagePrivatisation Case is not proved
Release: - Immediate
Contact: Cllr Chris Howell 07812 561208
North Somerset Council had an extraordinary Council meeting on Thursday 5th August to decide whether to privatise North Somerset Council's Internal Support Services.
Liberal Democrat Councillors on North Somerset Council are concerned the case for outsourcing has not been proved as so little work had been done on investigating keeping the services within the Council, it was almost impossible to make a fair comparison.
Lib Dem Leader Deborah Yamanaka said “The Conservatives are outsourcing services without making a proper business case to compare savings with an in-house solution. We, with the Independent and Labour Groups, voted for a delay at the Council meeting to allow time for proper scrutiny, particularly of the assumed savings which came as figures in a report with no background to explain how they were worked out - they could have just been plucked from the air for all we know."
The Tories, who currently hold a majority on North Somerset Council, did not seem interested in seeing a fair comparison and voted the outsourcing deal through - creating a £10 million per year commitment for the council for the next decade.
This decision was especially puzzling as services such as SWIFT, the adult social services database which holds details of the most vulnerable adults in
A year ago Liberal Democrat and Independent councillors called in the decision made by the current Conservative Executive members to start the outsourcing process.
Lib Dem finance spokesman Cllr Chris Howell said "At last year's call-in we hoped that the Finance panel would look into the outsourcing in detail, but they did not. Tory backbench councillors then and now voted for privatisation while, as far as we can tell, not really knowing much about it. It is clear that the North Somerset Tories have decided to privatise Finance, Payroll, ICT, HR, the telephone contact centre and the Social Services database whether or not it is the best solution for Council tax payers."
Cllr Howell added: "The Council is spending £380,000 from its reserves to fund the outsourcing project. While in opposition the Tories were critical of any use of reserves, which they said should only be spent on rainy days and not used for funding day to day projects."
Lib Dem leader, Cllr Deborah Yamanaka, said: "In the last decade the Tories were involved in running the Council for all but 18 months.
"Now that they have been back in power for three years they seem less concerned that Council tax payers' money is well spent than on promoting Conservative privatisation ideology. I was astonished at last week's Council meeting that the Leader Cllr Ashton was not aware of some of the facts on the services to be outsourced.
"I do not mind whether services are provided directly by the Council or by private companies. What matters is that services are good and provide value for money and that residents' confidential details are kept secure.
"But from the details we have seen there is simply not enough evidence to go ahead with privatisation."
ENDS