Peter Kent-Baguley

Profiting from the Public Purse

The Elected Mayor's drive to start the process of privatising the Council's workforce was given the green light this morning by the so-called Scrutiny Committee. I say so-called, because apart from the three Independent councillors, members of the Labour, Tory, Lib Dem ruling coalition appeared content to decline the opportunity to scrutinse the Executive's 2nd Juy decision to turn out our officers into the private sector. The democratic process is ill-served by such subservience to the coalition whip. Our workforce has been battered and buffetted for the past two years with perpetual organisational restructures, redundancies and the engagement of a constant stream of consultants. Add to that the antiquated IT systems many of them struggle to deploy in an efficient and effective way and yet, somehow, the Council's score increases from 1* to 3*. So, to be told that privatisation is a quick-fire way to service improvement is something of an injury. For privatisation of the workforce to be used as a tool to kick-start the (re)generation of the non-existent City-centre Business District adds insult to the injury. Thirdly, privatisation is justified on the basis that it will attract the level of investment our IT infrastructure needs. Not one coalition Member thought it necessary to interrogate the "justification" for any of this. Has the financial case for the Business District been established? What alternative sources of funding the IT investment have been researched? What discussions have taken place with the workforce? Why was this decision taken by the Executive when it should have gone to the General Purposes Committee and on to Full Council? The Scrutiny Committee's Labour deputy chair's one contribution to the proceedings was to say he couldn't see the point of the Independent's motion that the Committee agree to refer the issue to Full Council. Of course the motion was defeated and the two hour meeting ended. A sad day for the survival of public services; a sad day for scrutiny; a sad day for local democracy.