Edinburgh in U-turn over privatising 2,000 council jobs

PLANS to outsource services supplied by Edinburgh City Council’s maintenance, catering and porter staff to save tens of millions of pounds were abandoned yesterday after SNP and Labour councillors put aside party differences to vote them down.

The two parties, along with Green Party councillors, supported an amendment to abandon the transfer of integrated facilities management services to a private firm.

The council also voted, on the recommendation of its officers, to retain corporate services, including human resources, payroll and IT staff, in-house.

Last night, the public sector union Unison Scotland, which had strenuously resisted the changes, welcomed the decision, describing it as the “best outcome we could have got”.

During yesterday’s full council meeting, both the Conservative and, with the exception of Councillor Gary Peacock, the Lib Dem blocs voted to outsource integrated facilities management.

Had they been successful, it would have seen a £170 million, seven-year contract signed with Bristol-based company Mitie, and would have transferred 2,000 council staff jobs to the firm. The council had claimed it would have saved more than £51.5m over the same period.

There had been uncertainty in the run-up to the vote, as the Nationalists, despite being in coalition with the Lib Dems, opposed council jobs being privatised.

The SNP had already been instrumental in the defeat of an attempt to privatise bin collections and street cleaning services late last year, a move that was described as “totally irresponsible” by council leader Jenny Dawe.

In a statement following yesterday’s vote, the council confirmed the procurement process had been terminated “without award of any contract”, and that officers would now “focus on implementing a programme of improvement based on the vision set out in the council’s internal improvement plans for both areas”.

Sue Bruce, council chief executive, said of the vote: “We now have clear council decisions on both workstreams and I look forward to working with the staff and trades unions representatives to deliver the improvements to which we have all now committed.”

SNP group leader Steve Cardownie, the deputy council leader, said the party had not been persuaded of the merits of the private option.

“At the end of the day, having looked at the private sector bid versus the public sector comparator, we felt there was not sufficient advantage in going for the private sector bid.”

Mr Cardownie said that despite the split on the vote, the working relationship between Nationalist and Lib Dem councillors remained positive.

Last night, Labour group leader, Councillor Andrew Burns, welcomed the SNP’s decision: “I was delighted and pay due credit to the SNP for changing their mind in November over Environmental Services and I’m equally delighted that they decided to back the Labour amendment this morning as well.”

Unison branch president John Stevenson said: “This is the best outcome we could have got – following the victory in November for keeping environmental services public.”