COUNCILLORS IN a major British local authority, which is battling increasingly smaller budgets, yesterday decided to privatise almost all of its services, handing them over to businesses or charities operating on contracts. The move could mean all but a few hundred of its 27,000 staff will be retained in coming years.
The Suffolk county council meeting, which considered the plan to offload services over four years, saving one-third of its £1 billion budget if fully implemented, was picketed by trade unionists. They warned of job losses, and raised fears that child protection and other sensitive functions could be taken over by private firms.
The Conservative-controlled council would provide almost no services itself directly. The London borough of Barnet, too, has sought to model itself on low-frill airlines Ryanair and EasyJet by similarly contracting out services – although it has run into wide-ranging legal battles.
Under the plan, Suffolk council, which has a reputation for being one of the most radical local authorities, will become “an enabling council”, employing only managers to monitor the awarding of contracts, and their subsequent performance. This model was proposed 30 years ago by the then-Conservative environment minister Nicholas Ridley.
The local authority is bracing itself for cuts of 25 per cent once the results of next month’s comprehensive spending review from the government is known, but council leader Jeremy Pembroke said: “The question is, how do we improve outcomes for people in Suffolk while receiving a smaller revenue grant from the government? We need to be bold, imaginative and to recognise the benefit in enabling services to be delivered from outside the authority.
"The amount of money we are going to have to spend on providing services will fall dramatically over the next few years," he told the local East Anglian Daily Times. "If we don't reform the way we deliver those services, then the cuts would have to be much deeper – much more painful. By becoming an enabling authority we will give local people the opportunity to decide what level of service they want."
Some services could be privatised within months, such as libraries. Youth clubs, highway services, independent living centres, careers advice, children’s centres, registrars, country parks and the local authority’s records office are scheduled to be offloaded in a three-phase programme beginning next April, the proposal document said. “Whilst we believe that the divestment process can save money, we are unlikely to be able to escape the fact that the council will have to stop supporting some services in whole or in part,” it continued.
Trade union official Steve Warner of Unison warned that the move would have a disastrous effect on the morale of council staff and threaten services for the young and elderly, and those with learning disabilities: “We’re worried that the councillors will have less control over those services and that the people of Suffolk will find that those services are less accountable to them.”
