Services given to private firm
AN AGREEMENT which will see a third of Wellingborough Council’s staff employed by a private firm is being finalised and will come into effect from next month.
From March 1 around 100 council workers’ jobs will be transferred to the Norse Group.
Workers will continue to work for the new firm under the same terms and conditions they are currently on.
Wellingborough Norse will take over the running of council services including waste and refuse collection, street cleansing, cemeteries, public toilets, car parks, the market, environmental enforcement and grounds maintenance.
The deal is set to save the council £2.3m over five years.
Council leader Paul Bell said: “Wellingborough Norse is a joint company that will see the wide range of duties carried out by our environmental services teams continue, with the same employees, but the systems behind the work will be more streamlined and cost effective.
“And from March 1 the company will also be able to bid for extra work around the borough – it will have the expertise and the equipment and it can use that to get more contracts, for example collecting trade waste or servicing heavy goods vehicles.”
He said Wellingborough Norse would also immediately be recruiting for permanent jobs to replace agency workers.
Graham Jermyn, Norse Commercial Services director, said: “We were able to identify a number of potential areas of savings for the council. These include insurance costs, asset acquisition and maintenance, procurement and dedicated back office support and systems.
“We’ll be working as an effective partnership rather than on a supplier/contractor basis, and will reinvest these savings into further service improvements.”
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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There are 3 comments to this article
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DMT48
Saturday, February 18, 2012 at 05:08 PMEr...how can a permanent contract be worse than a zero hour agency contract which has almost zero rights? And at least they might get a pay increase - agency workers get no pay increase until it is forced on the agencies by minimum wage legislation.
Aliss
Saturday, February 18, 2012 at 01:46 PMHaving worked for a number of companies that have "outsourced" work, I very much doubt this is going to be of any use. Time after time, it turns out that the outsourced company, although cheaper, will fail miserably to deliver anything useful to their clients. Even in my current place, we've spent 50 hours trying to get one simple purchase though an outsourced company - worth about £1000. Which is a lot less than we've spent on people chasing them because they're utterly useless. I suspect Victor is right too.
Victor Stirling
Saturday, February 18, 2012 at 12:02 PMWhat's the betting that these new "permanent" workers this firm will employ, will have terms and conditions much less favourable than current council workers, i.e. short-term contracts and a lower salary. I hate to be pessimistic, but I've noticed that whenever services are contracted out to the private sector, whilst money may be saved, the level of service also degrades to fit profit margins.
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