Barnet Council is outsourcing everything - it's time to fight back

Barnet Council is aiming to outsource as much as possible. John Burgess, the Branch Secretary of Barnet UNISON, is on the frontline of the battle to keep services public. He explains what's happening and how council staff and residents are fighting back.

Six years ago Barnet Council introduced a policy known as Future Shape which morphed into 'easyCouncil'. This imposed a series of tariffs on residents wishing to access a range of services. A basic service would be offered to residents at a fixed price, but ‘fast track’ services might be available if you paid extra.

This approach was quickly abandoned by the consultant driven One Barnet Programme, but the programme led to the following Council Services being outsourced or privatised in the space of three years:

• Social care for adults with disabilities to Your Choice Barnet 
• Housing options to Barnet Homes
• Parking services to NSL
• Revenues and benefits, IT, HR and payroll, pensions, health and safety, finance, estates, property services, procurement, projects all now part of Capita CSG
• Environmental health, planning, building control, Hendon cemetery and crematorium, highways, trading standards and licensing all now Capita RE
• Legal services to Harrow Council
• Registrars and nationality services to Brent Council
• CCTV to OCS
• Music Trust - this was a traded service and became a trust
• Public health to Harrow Council
• Mortuary services.to Brent Council

Over the past three years hundreds of council workers have been transferred to other employers. This has often meant redundancies as the new employer has moved jobs out of the borough and Greater London to places as far afield as Belfast, Carlisle, Coventry, Southampton and Darlington.

Barnet has branded this final phase as the ‘Commissioning Council’.
 
On 3rd March 2015 Barnet Council agreed its next Five Commissioning Plans all of which are looking at ‘Alternative Delivery Models’, jargon for outsourcing. 

The council services now at risk of outsourcing are:

• Early years – 13 children’s centres
• Library services
• Adults and communities services
• Street scene services e.g. waste and recycling, street cleansing, parks and transport
• Education and skills and school meals services

Tomorrow UNISON members working for Barnet Council take their fifth day of strike action as they fight to keep council services public. You can read about why we are taking strike action in our newspaper Barnet Voice and see what you can do to support us.