On Wednesday 3 June 2015 Barnet UNISON attended two meetings at which Education & Skills and Schools Meals staff were informed that the Council were in talks with Capita & Mott MacDonald (Cambridge Education) about taking over their services.
It would be fair to say that the general feeling of the meeting was that the current proposal for privatisation was not supported and there was a strong view from staff that the prospects of the current proposal generating growth were bordering on fantasy.
Today, 8 June at a UNISON meeting staff mandated the branch to write to all Councillors on the Children’s, Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committee outlining our concerns and seeking a postponement of the process.
UNISON recommendations:
Barnet UNISON strongly recommends that the Council should:
1. Postpone the Competitive Dialogue until the revised Outline Business Plan is completed and agreed by the Children, Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committee.
2. Revise the financial modelling for trading income in the JVC option as a matter of urgency.
3. Revise the Education and Skills Outline Business Plan to take account of the financial, organisational, risk and operational implications of subcontracting the bulk of the workforce to another private contractor.
4. Seek confirmation from the bidders about their long-term plans for all the Education and Skills services and to reject proposals that involve subcontracting of services, except for obtaining specialist advice and skills.
5. Exclude the Catering Service from the JVC option and retain in-house.
6. Revise the Equalities Impact Assessment for Education and Skills to include a full employment profile of those employed in the services.
7. Re-examine the responsibilities, accountability and the decision making process, contract clauses and the method of monitoring and scrutinising the performance of a major subcontractor.
8. Require open book accounting for the JVC, a profit-sharing agreement and an annual report from the JVC as part of transparency for schools and the public.
You can read our full report here
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