Council drops wholesale outsourcing

Author: Public Finance - Jul 9, 2009

The London Borough of Barnet has dropped proposals for a wholesale outsourcing that would have reduced it to a tiny strategic core.
The proposals discussed by the council in December included setting up a joint venture company to commission services as well as a series of ‘service delivery vehicles’. The proposals had gone even further than Essex County Council’s £5.4bn scheme to outsource ‘any or all’ services.
But Barnet’s Cabinet decided on July 6 to drop the joint venture proposal and focus initially on an internal reorganisation of services that will consolidate functions such as human resources and property management across the council. Front-office services will also be consolidated into a single customer service organisation.
The aim is to move towards organising service provision in a way that brings together related areas of work rather than separating them in traditional departments. This would mean that traffic wardens, for example, could be given responsibility for other street-related activities such as reporting fly-tipping.
A second stage of the council’s Future Shape project is set to examine commissioning arrangements – including work with other local public services.
Chief executive Nick Walkley said the turnaround from the December plans had occurred because ‘the project ended up in danger of becoming a caricature of itself’. It was being seen as ‘all about outsourcing... all about just having 300 people’, he said.
‘What we need to be about is putting together a one public service ethos that will radically reshape our own services while we work directly with partners to help shape theirs.’
Council leader Mike Freer added: ‘Developments won’t simply follow a “private sector good, public sector bad” model.’

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