Wholesale privatisation would be a disaster for Southampton

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Wholesale privatisation would be a disaster for Southampton

By Southampton Labour ⋅ November 10, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
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Proposals by Southampton’s Tory-run Council for a wholesale privatisation of local services will be a disaster for Southampton, Alan Whitehead MP has said.

The City Council’s newly published “Change Agenda” (pdf) states:

“By 2015, we expect to be primarily, a commissioning council.”

The clear implication of this is that the City Council would no longer provide services in-house. Hundreds of jobs in Southampton could be lost, services to local residents would be under threat and the restructuring and consultancy costs would be sky-high.

Commenting on the proposals, Alan Whitehead MP said: “If these proposals go through, it will be a disaster for our city. In addition to the massive potential job losses, this will cause utter chaos in Council services and fatally undermine the vital role the Council is supposed to play in making sure local services work in the interests of local people – all for no clear gain in terms of service delivery.

“Even with the dire state that the Tories have placed Southampton’s finances in over the last four years, there is no business case for a wholesale privatisation of the Council’s functions. There may well be a case for sharing services with other Councils on a case by case basis, but that is very different from an arbitrary declaration that all Council services will be outsourced, regardless of their efficiency or how many people rely on them.

“People who work for the Council or who depend on their services will be extremely worried by this plan. I’ll be writing immediately to the Conservative Leader of the City Council asking him to reassure staff that any future outsourcing under his administration would be based on clear cost-benefit analysis and a clear understanding that it will not impact on the vital work the Council does to support the most vulnerable people in our city. Southampton deserves policy based on rational analysis, not an ideological declaration of hostility to public services that takes place prior to any serious thought.”

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