Council picks slimmest joint venture

After many months of wrangling, Cornwall Council today voted in favour of the slimmest form of joint venture partnership which will see some services and staff handed over to a private company. But it is not yet certain that the move will go ahead as it will rely on more negotiations with BT and health organisations.

Councillors comprehensively voted against the 'full fat' version of the deal which would have seen vast swathes of services - including libraries, one stop shops and other front line services - handed over to BT.

For me, this was the crucial point. Ever since the expanded privatisation project was unveiled earlier this year I have been campaigning to exempt libraries and once stop shops from its scope. There is no money to be made for a private company in running these services and I feared that privatisation would only see a reduction in services. In addition, the chance to put some of Cornwall Council's services into post offices may still be on offer - but without the downside of having to hand over our libraries and library staff to a private company.

Unfortunately for my point of view, councillors also narrowly rejected the option of keeping services in house. The majority of Lib Dems voted for the in-house option and most Conservatives voted against.

That left us with one of a range of intermediate options. The one eventually picked was that involving the least handover of services possible. BT (assuming they are happy to continue with the project) will take over a narrow range of back office functions including IT and payroll. Crucially, this version will also allow the council to be involved in 'tele-care' and 'tele-health' projects which could bring new jobs to Cornwall.

I'm disappointed that the in-house option was defeated but am determined now to do what I can to make any new partnership work as well as possible.

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Councillors have thirteen options - staff get just two

Full marks to Cllr Andrew Wallis who has spotted that Cornwall Council's staff survey on the potential privatisation of key services contains just two real options.

Staff are asked to rank four choices in order of preference. One is an in-house option. Two more are essentially the same thing (the BT bid and 'out-sourcing') and the final one is 'Undecided'.

So what happened to the thirteen different options that councillors were told were being considered when we had a briefing last week? The full council had demanded that a wide range of possibilities - which should all have been in the mix from the start - should be investigated. Why are staff being offered a choice of just two?

Last week a number of councillors felt that the advocates of the BT bid were trying to railroad the choice into one between BT and no change. The staff survey gives added credence to that fear.

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Cornwall Privatisation - There are no more than 13 alternatives

Cornwall councillors had a briefing this morning about the privatisation proposal (joint venture, shared services, outsourcing - call it what you will).

As little as a month ago, we were told that there was no realistic alternative to the BT privatisation bid. Now there appear to be no fewer than thirteen different options on the table. Amazing what you can find when you look.

I can't say what is the best option at this stage. We are waiting for the proper write up of all the different alternatives. What I can say is that each offers very different outcomes. There may be bigger potential savings on offer with the BT bid - but there is some scepticism from members about how achievable these are and they involve a lot more loss of control. If people still want their local councillors to be able to affect and change local policy then this will be less possible following privatisation.

Today was all about asking councillors whether the council was considering the right options. By and large, I think they are. I just hope that they look at them all in proper depth and don't try to present us with a half-baked study.

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A courageous decision by someone on the fourth floor...

I've just received the following email from officers at Cornwall Council:

In consultation with the Chairman, the Council meeting has been moved from 4 December to 11 December 2012 to enable a full and informed debate on the Governance Review and Strategic Partnership for Support Services. 

And so it seems that someone on the fourth floor is determined to press ahead with yet another attempt to get councillors to agree to shared services.

To recap: At the September meeting, councillors voted against shared services/privatisation. The (now ex-) Leader decided to press ahead nonetheless.

Last month (having sacked the Leader) we debated the issue again and put the matter on hold pending a full investigation into other alternatives including an employee own mutual, a shared services partnership with other public sector bodies but excluding a private company and a private-public tie up to bid for contracts outside Cornwall.

I would have thought that all those studies would have taken quite a bit of time and effort and would have fully used up the three months that BT have given the council to decide on their bid. But someone seems confident that councillors will be in a position to decide the issue in pretty short order.

All I can say is that it is a pretty big risk to take if councillors get it into their heads that the alternatives have not been exhaustively considered.

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Privatisation kicked into the long grass

Cornwall Council today voted to kick privatisation into the long grass.

In the interim, the council will properly consider alternatives including:

• working more closely with our NHS and other public sector colleagues to share services and deliver savings as a result (but without a private sector partner creaming off a profit);
• working with a private sector partner in a trading venture to bid for contracts outside Cornwall and to bring new jobs to Cornwall;
• an employee-owned mutual company.

In my opinion, we can't afford to take this decision without properly understanding all the options. The old cabinet started off with one view and then dropped it (for no apparent reason) and put all its eggs into the full-privatisation basket.

I also believe that the final decision must rest with all 123 councillors - not a select group of 10 - and that provision was agreed by council today.

So how deep into the grass has this been kicked? My personal view is that it should be for the next council to take this decision. None of the current councillors was elected on a manifesto commitment to support or oppose privatisation - it wasn't on the table in 2009. If the final decision is delayed until after May next year then the councillors can feel they have the mandate of their electorate to support one option or another.

But whatever model is taken forward, I do not believe that libraries or one stop shops should be handed over to a private company. These are key front line services and I think they should carry on being delivered by Cornwall Council staff on behalf of Cornish residents.

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And then there was one...

The fact that one of the bidders for Cornwall Council's proposed privatisation has pulled out might be seen as another nail in the coffin of a dead proposal. But it also makes it much more difficult for anyone who wants to take the proposal forward to hope to get a value for money outcome.

I'll put my cards on the table. Whilst I think there are areas of joint working (and even working with a private sector partner) that could be taken forward, I'm wholly opposed to certain aspects of the current proposal and think it should be dropped at this time. I'd like to see the next council make the decision based on a mandate from the public and including a 'third way' option of a mutual or the original trading vehicle option.

But whilst I was very concerned about the idea of working with a company with such a colourful history as CSC (orange jumpsuits anybody), their decision to pull out makes a mockery of the idea of a competitive tendering process. The remaining bidder - BT - could decide to backtrack on some of their commitments as they would be under less pressure to produce a better deal. (That's not to say that they will, of course. The process until now has meant that they have made certain promises that it would be difficult to renege on, even if they were minded to).

The decision will be taken next Tuesday by the full council (as it should be). I'll be arguing that it should be shelved until May.

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This is not a u-turn...

"This is not a u-turn, I'm just listening. There's no point the cabinet pushing through a policy that the majority of the council are against. That's doomed to fail."

That was the Leader of the Council speaking on Radio Cornwall this morning to announce that he was, after all, prepared to accept the outcome of a vote of Cornwall's full council when it comes to deciding whether or not to press ahead with the privatisation of key services.

And, as well as not being a U-turn, it is also nothing to do with next week's vote of no confidence in his leadership, according to Cllr Robertson. Of course not. The Leader talked about saving jobs, but my colleague Jeremy Rowe hit the nail on the head when he said that the only jobs he is worrying about are his own and those of his colleagues in the County Hall bunker.

So why doesn't Cllr Robertson simply accept the vote that has already been taken on this very subject when the council voted clearly against the privatisation policy? According to the Leader this morning, councillors didn't have all the information and also that vote wasn't clear. He now wants to spend the next two weeks persuading people of the benefits of privatisation. It seems incredible that it takes a no-confidence vote to force him to start making his case. Why don't we have a council that genuinely gets out and listens to the residents and businesses of Cornwall all the time rather than simply when their backs are against the wall.

The Leader appears to be trying to set an extra threshold for this particular vote. Whereas every decision taken by the council to date has been on the basis of the majority of those who expressed a preference, he wants a higher threshold - an overall majority of all councillors - for this decision.

I've blogged about this before - it's arbitrary and anti-democratic. But Alec himself failed to stick to the line during the interview when he declared that:

"If a majority of the council aren't in favour of it then we won't go ahead."

So instead of needing a super-majority against to stop privatisation, he seems to be declaring that he needs a super-majority in favour to go ahead. No doubt the carefully written press release will tell us what he should have said.

The other key line from this morning's interview was when the Leader said that the reason they had no Plan B and were putting all Cornwall's eggs in one basket because:

"We haven't fully considered all the alternatives"

It's incredible isn't it. This is the future of some pretty fundamental council services and hundreds of jobs. Yet instead of fully considering a range of options and then picking the best, they have fixated on one particular outcome.

There is probably a lot of money to be saved by teaming up with the health service and other public bodies in Cornwall for back office functions. But is this best done simply by working with the health service or do we need a private sector partner to help us (and take money out of the system to satisfy their shareholders along the way)? We don't know because the public sector only alternative hasn't been fully worked up.

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Jim Currie's explosive email on privatisation

Jim Currie is the Cornwall Council cabinet member in charge of finances and corporate support. He's also deputy leader of the council and the former leader of the Conservatives on the old County Council. So when he states his unease with a flagship council policy, he deserves to be listened to.

In an explosive email to all Cornwall councillors this morning, Jim has said that he is still deeply skeptical about the whole privatisation (or Joint Venture in council speak) proposal. He suggests that each of the new jobs created by the partnership could cost as much as a million pounds. He talks about secrecy and legal threats and a lack of evidence.

But Jim's key area of concern is procurement. The proposal is that this service - which ensures that Cornwall gets the best service levels and value for money whenever it buys in other services - will be privatised. Jim asks, quite reasonably, how we can get best value in the future if the private company is procuring itself.

You can watch Jim's speech at the last council meeting in the Cornwall webcasting facility. Use this link and then scroll though on the right hand side until you reach 14.14 (3hrs.44.36 into the broadcast). He has sent all members of a copy of that speech but then added the following footnotes:

"The JV (joint venture) process has been described as a year and a half of smoke and mirrors (and secrecy) sorting out £22m a year contract followed by a smash and grab raid of a few weeks imposing a £436 million a year contract for procurement. I would agree with this description since I was on leave when it happened.

The correct procedure to challenge the Cabinet decision on JV was a call-in by Scrutiny. Indeed there are 7 situations that can each trigger a call-in and this decision had six of them. Unfortunately the Single Issue Panel consisted of the main players from Scrutiny who were baulked by competitive dialogue secrecy and the speed of the procurement extension to the contract. The reports to Cabinet were excellent but done in record time. Procurement which is 95% of the Equity was not identified.

The promise of jobs in six to seven years time indeed may well happen. Unfortunately, information freely available to all members would indicate a distinct possibility that each job could cost the Cornish taxpayer one million pounds. At that rate the jobs will continue to happen so long as members push up Council Tax as their main involvement.

Not a jury in the land would endorse the annual delegation of twice the size of all Council Tax revenue being described as a purely executive (Cabinet) function.

The Competitive Dialogue process has been backed up by secrecy, loads of anecdotal comments including filibuster and threats of legal action but no real evidence. Unfortunately it takes ages to filter out the direction of travel so members are getting a kicking if they venture into the minefield. .

Procurement has been recognised by the Local Government Association as a priority and they are setting up their own school. There are several Local Government Consortia and together with the LGA (safety in numbers) we would not be at such a risk as with current JV proposals.

Since the 4th of September I have seen or heard nothing to change my views on the massive risk involved with the size of this venture.

Jim Currie"

Comparisons have been made already with the devastating speech made by Geoffrey Howe in helping to bring down Margaret Thatcher. I'm not sure that Jim would deserve the 'dead sheep' analogy, but when one of the main figures in your administration writes in this way, then things are looking grim for the Leader.

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Petition against Cornwall Privatisation

A petition has been launched by a cross party group of councillors calling for plans by senior members of Cornwall Council to privatise services to be stopped. Services including libraries, payroll and benefit payments face being run by outside companies after a tendering process for work worth £300m a year.

The petition is being run by Andrew Wallis, the Independent councillor who proposed the anti-privatisation motion at the last council meeting. Andrew's motion was approved by the majority of councillors but the Cabinet decided the next day to ignore democracy and press ahead with the plan.

Others behind the petition are MK's Andrew Long, Lib Dem Geoff Brown, Labour's Jude Robinson and Independent Graham Walker.

I've signed the petition. You can do so here.

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Cornwall Cabinet sticks two fingers up to democracy

Cornwall's Tory led cabinet has this afternoon stuck two fingers up to democracy and insisted that it will press ahead with the privatisation of key council services despite an overwhelming vote against the proposal at yesterday's full council meeting.

The Cabinet member in charge of the policy - Steve Double - has claimed that most of the concerns raised yesterday had already been addressed at the council meeting. Clearly members were not convinced by the answers they were given then or subsequently.

Steve also claims that there are many cases of successful public-private partnerships. Which is true. But there are also many examples of privatisation disasters and Cornwall's own history has not been so successful. Members are clearly worried about the ability of the authority to make any contract work.

Indeed, the statement issued by Cllr Double today is virtually identical to the one sent out as soon as the vote was taken yesterday - so it appears that the Cabinet has not even considered the case made by councillors.

From another cabinet member comes the claim that ordinary members of the council did not engage (read: understand) with the issues under discussion. All I can say to that is that the majority of members who sat on the single issue panel which looked at extreme depth into the issue voted against the privatisation scheme yesterday, and the cabinet member who had studied the issue most deeply also spoke out against it.

Liberal Democrats maintain that the administration does not have the mandate to carry through this scheme which risks services, jobs and money. We have challenged the Conservatives to face the electorate with this plan next May, but it seems they are too afraid to do so.

UPDATE - My colleague and group leader Jeremy Rowe has just said this:

"I am appalled at this latest display of arrogance from the Conservatives at County Hall. At yesterday's meeting more than half of the democratically elected Councillors present voted to stop this privatisation process, yet today a select few tucked away in the top floor bunker in Truro have decided to ignore that clear view from the Council and plough on regardless. They have no mandate for this outsourcing project but they still have the arrogance to assume they know better than just about everybody else. It is a black day for democracy in Tory-led Cornwall."

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Cornwall Lib Dems statement on privatisation vote

As I'm at a conference in Telford this week, I was unable to attend yesterday's full council meeting where the issue of the privatisation of services was discussed. But the council voted clearly in favour of the motion put forward condemning the plans. After the debate, my colleague Jeremy Rowe had this to say:

"Cornwall Councillors today voted overwhelmingly and unequivocally against the cabinet's decision to go into a joint venture partnership with a private company to deliver a wide range of council services - in effect a privatisation. It is now up to the Cabinet to respond to this vote, but we cannot see how they could choose to over-ride the considered views of councillors as expressed today."

"No party stood in 2009 on a manifesto of privatising more services and it would be wrong to take such a huge decision without the understanding and support of the electorate. We challenge the Conservatives and those of their Independent group allies who voted for this move to stand next May on a platform of privatisation. Only if the voters of Cornwall support them should this plan move ahead."

"There is obviously scope to look at doing things differently, but part of the problem has been the Cabinet's reluctance to ask the right questions. For instance, Cornwall Council and the NHS could look at working together to provide an in-house solution to IT provision and this may have the potential to save considerable sums of money while being an attractive proposition for other local authorities. All we ask is that all the options are examined instead of the current administration's narrow ideological approach."

"Today's debate saw members from all sides express their concern and opposition to this proposal which is hasty and ill-thought through. There are, of course, some public-private partnerships which have been very successful. But Cornwall has a sorry history of PFI and contract problems which we cannot afford to see repeated with these services. We do not believe that it is in Cornwall's best interests to proceed with this plan."

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Cornwall's Joint Venture

At the full council meeting on Tuesday there is a motion to do with Cornwall Council's decision to enter into a joint venture partnership to deliver a range of services including libraries and one stop shops, payroll and back office services. Because the venture will involve creating a private company which will be (at least) majority controlled by the private sector partner and because there will be no councillor representation on the board, we have described this move as privatisation.

The power to take this decision rests with the cabinet and they have already voted to start the process. The debate on Tuesday is a last ditch attempt by non-cabinet councillors from Lib Dem, MK, Labour and Indie groups to put the brakes on.

We know that there are two bidders to be the private sector partner. One is BT - a well known name already in partnership with various councils up and down the country. The trouble is that, as Unison has pointed out to councillors, in Suffolk the hoped for savings have not been made and the contract will not be renewed and in Rotherham the contract wasn't working and the council bought out the contract.

There are no doubt more successful joint ventures involving BT, but there is a degree of risk involved and I am concerned that the council has not properly thought through all the facets of such a deal and is rushing into it.

As for the other potential partner, CSC, they are an American company with very little history of doing business in the UK. Both partners were asked to highlight any 'bad news' surrounding their company as well as the good - something I very much approve of. The trouble is that one of the most damaging accusations against CSC didn't appear in their dossier. In 2004 they bought another company, called DynCorp, which had been involved in extraordinary renditions (ie kidnaps) of people by the US government and flying them halfway round the world to secret prisons.

But, as the organisation Reprieve alleges in a letter to the council on Andrew Wallis' blog, CSC's involvement in rendition did not end when they bought DynCorp. Reprieve say that they were involved in further flights in their own right.

I find it extraordinary that Cornwall Council should consider doing business with such an ethically challenged company. I find it even worse that the company should try to purge mention of these incidents from the dossier they supplied to the council.

At the end of the day I think there is the potential for Cornwall Council to do some sort of business involving bidding for other public sector work. But I remain far from convinced that they have thought this issue through properly and I am incredibly concerned that they should still be considering a company such as CSC.

Tuesday's debate will be an interesting one.

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