This Barnet UNISON Briefing examines the London Borough of Barnet’s plan to allocate just 2.5% client costs in the planned outsourcing of planning, environment health, trading standards, highways planning and cemeteries. The amount allocated would hardly be adequate to fund contract management and monitoring, leaving nothing to fund other client functions. It discusses the effects…

The London Borough of Barnet signed a £100m 25-year PFI street lighting contract with Barnet Lighting Services Limited (Bouygues Construction and Mill Group infrastructure fund) in April 2006. This Briefing details the delays and performance failures by the private contractor, the lack of audit despite the high risks and cost increases borne by the Council,…

Cathy Davis, Department of Environment and Life Sciences, University of Salford, UK in Housing Studies, 2012: “…the volume provides a wealth of detail about how neo-liberalist approaches are subverting and replacing state provision, predominantly in the UK as well as other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Three introductory chapters outline the ‘deepening…

The Mutation of Privatisation: A critical assessment of new community and individual rights, European Services Strategy Unit – Research Report No. 5, Dexter Whitfield – has been published by Spokesman Books, ISBN 978-0-85124-817-2, price £8.95, order online: http://www.spokesmanbooks.com/acatalog/Dexter_Whitfield.html The study has been featured on the Australian Government’s Service Delivery in Government web site: http://servicedelivery.govspace.gov.au/2012/07/30/featured-reports-6/

In the mid-1980s, prompted by the passing of Single European Act, the European Union embarked upon an ambitious programme of liberalisation to complete the Single Market. This included the opening up of many national industries to pan-European competition. EU public procurement law has been a crucial pillar to this agenda as EU institutions have sought…

New community rights to bid, buy, build, challenge and provide are enshrined in legislation and Coalition policy. The government is also extending existing individual rights to buy and to personal budgets. This paper examines the objectives and scope of the new community rights and proposes a typology of public sector reform rights. It highlights the…

“This is not so much a ‘hollowing out’ of the state, but a fundamental redirection to finance and manage markets and collusion in the deepening of corporate welfare.” Chartist, July/August 2012.

The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) has reversed its decision to award a ten-year 999 Fire Control managed services contract to Capita plc. Instead the LFEPA will enter into a contract for a replacement mobilising system only. This means that the 120 control staff will remain employed by the Authority. ESSU produced a…

UNISON has called on the London Borough of Barnet to immediately abandon its plan to become a Commissioning Council. The report by the European Services Strategy Unit (ESSU) documents the fundamental weaknesses in each stage of the procurement process for two large strategic partnerships of up to £1billion value and nearly 1,000 staff. The report…