Opt-out policies for councils

[Busman747]

Making a comment on another thread reminded me of something that has always confused me.

Why is it always financially beneficial for councils to get outside contractors to do the jobs that are the responsibility of the council?

Car park and street wardens for example, I know that the council receive £X-00 annually without raising a finger but the private companies that are paying that are also making a tidy sum on top otherwise they would go bust

Many councils use outside firms to collect rubbish and recycled waste. If there wasn't money in it, no one would put in a tender.

Catering? I believe that even the Houses of Parliament use outside caterers - WHY? If the facilities are there, why pay someone else to supply the staff?

Maybe I am missing something here, they can pay staff £60.000 for a non-job explaining to the general population how they can avoid being non-pc but can't afford £25.000 to an experienced caterer to run a canteen?

Can anyone explain what I am missing please?

[garinda]

Be interesting to know the answer.

Perhaps because many of those in charge haven't achieved great success themselves, in the real world of commerce?

Perhaps we can contract out some of our councillors.

That should prove financially beneficial.

[gynn]

Originally Posted by Busman747

Can anyone explain what I am missing please?

You can thank (or blame) Margaret Thatcher.

She introduced the concept of Compulsory Competitive Tendering for most Council services in the early 1980s, forcing them to test the inhouse service costs against what the private sector could do. The only factor that could be taken into account in those days was cost, and it led to a field day for private companies to cut corners and provide a thoroughly shoddy service, in areas such as refuse collection, street and building cleaning.

The Labour Government plugged the loopholes in the rules from 1997 onwards by introducing Best Value, where price AND quality had to be taken into account, but by then many of the old in house providers had long since been dismantled.

And so today we still have many services run by outside contractors.

[jaysay]

The Labour Council that only stayed in power for 12 months did one of the most stupid thinks I've ever heard of, they did away with the Works Department, the Works department that was actually making a profit and was actually bringing money into the council, in the previous year they had a profit of around £350000 which was ploughed back into the council coffers, it was a excellently run department but they scrapped it, if I remember rightly that is one issue Graham and myself agreed on