Information on Loughborough

UNISON protest to Charnwood Outsourcing Plans

Posted on 06/12/2007
P. Klein

unison protest outside loughborough town hall

Tuesday night saw Unison protests outside Loughborough’s Town Hall.

The council workers were raising awareness of proposed changes to the way the council runs it’s back office administration. What the council plans to do is to outsource certain functions along with  Rushcliffe council  to either Capita or Liberata. It is hoped that this would create a 10% reduction in cost by doing this. The service outsourced will include Human Resources, Benefits and Revenues and a range of other Services. The move by the council is an effort to save money and cut costs and outsourcing is nothing new. Services such as waste collection and leisure centres have been outsourced to private companies for considerable time.

However Unison is claiming that Charnwood Borough Councils plan to remove direct labour and use the services of a private companies will lead to “fragmentation, divisiveness and services bound up by contract small-print and the prospect of costly legislation”. Unison claims that maintaining the direct labour provision of service delivery and working in partnership with other local authorities will ensure retention of services with “cohesion, flexibility, responsiveness and joined-up delivery”.

Chief Executive of Charnwood, Brian Hayes, said back in July: “In increasingly hard financial circumstances for local authorities we are continually examining opportunities to work with others to cut costs and not services.

“Charnwood strives to be open and innovative in all we do and this initiative will allow us to not only do this but make real savings, together with Rushcliffe Borough Council, who have the same values.”

Unison is asking people who are concerned to write to the Leader of Charnwood Borough Council - Councillor Richard Shepherd with their views.