COUNCIL chiefs have formally scrapped the privatisation of bin and recycling services in the city despite claims it will leave a £2million ‘black hole’ in the council’s finances.
Members of the Labour cabinet approved axing the controversial outsourcing process at a meeting last Tuesday (June 14).
The previous Conservative leadership had hoped to outsource the city’s bin collections, street cleaning, parks and grounds maintenance contract to cut costs.
The former Conservative leadership had already spent £82,000 on the process, and claimed it would save the City Council up to £500,000 a year by getting a private firm to carry out the services.
However, the Labour group made a pledge in their local election manifesto in May to scrap the privatisation, amid claims the council wouldn’t actually save the amount of money the Conservatives had planned for.
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Coun Marc Bayliss, Leader of the Conservative Group, said: “I have to admit to being very surprised by how wafer thin this paper is given its fundamental impact upon the City Council’s finances.
“This decision will over the five years of the medium term financial strategy create a £2million black hole in the City Council’s finances.
“This decision impacts upon four per cent of what the City Council spends and yet there is very little in here, almost nothing, around the implications.
In response, Coun Adrian Gregson, Leader of the City Council, said: “In the previous scrutiny and consultation arrangements which went on last year there was a lack of any substantial case that the savings would have been made, the prevention of decent scrutiny and the ignoring of the costs of the consultation exercise which said that people wanted the services to remain within the council.
“I think it was important that what we did was to end any uncertainty which has been dragging on for at least three or four months around this, to end that uncertainty for the benefit of not only the staff, but also for local people.
“It’s also the case this is something which needed to be done before the next stage of competitive dialogue was entered into and before any more money was spent.
“We’ve already spent quite a lot of money, some of which is very well spent, and we will use that information and exploration of the service when we look at other ways in which we can deliver any savings.
“But its certainly the case we need to stop spending that money on something in which we have no intention in pursuing,” he added.
