Today is all about the council and the plans to privatise services. Our article last week by Alyson Macdonald gave you a flavour of the anti-privatisation lobby. The full council meets this morning amid claims that their Alternative Business Model will be rejected by councillors.
The recommendation to the council reads as follows:-
9.1 It is recommended that the City of Edinburgh Council:
- (i) agrees to the appointment of Enterprise Managed Services Ltd as the preferred bidder for the Environment workstream;
- (ii) delegates to the Directors of Services for Communities and Corporate Governance authority to enter into a partnership agreement based on the terms set out in Appendix 2;
- (iii) agrees to the draw down of a further £788k from the Council’s spend-to-save fund to complete the review programme; and,
- (iv) notes that further reports will be made to future meetings of the Council on the Integrated Facilities Management and Corporate & Transactional Services workstreams.
Andrew Burns the Labour group leader has his say on his blog and posts the Labour Amendment to the proposal which essentially rejects the first three parts of the recommendation above.
The Edinburgh Evening News reported yesterday that the SNP group have decided not to support the recommendation to privatise services. Peter Hunter the local UNISON organiser explained to STV Local why privatisation should not be supported.
UNISON will be demonstrating outside the City Chambers this morning ahead of the council meeting, and have a comprehensive report of Monday evening’s public meeting which they called to discuss privatisation and the cuts.
If the privatisation plans are rejected then it will make for an interesting meeting of the Finance and Resources Committee on 1 November.
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