Glasgow outsourcing tax scam removes democratic control, and attacks fair pay

Date: Tuesday 21 April 2009

UNISON, the main union representing Glasgow council staff, has condemned that council’s increasing reliance on outsourced trusts and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) to deliver public services. Currently around 15,000 staff are employed by nine LLPs, trusts and partnerships in Glasgow.

In a speech to the Scottish TUC in Perth today (Tuesday 21), Mike Kirby, Scottish Convenor of UNISON, the largest public service union and Chair of its Glasgow City Branch will denounce the rush to outsource services as a tax scam that abandons democratic control, and allows the council to avoid its legal duty to pay men and women equally.

Mike will say “A recent Glasgow Council report into these ‘arms length external organisations’ admits that these ALEOs are a tax scam, that they lead to loss of democratic control by councillors, and that they can avoid more equal pay claims because they have fewer comparators. So much for the Labour Government’s public sector equality duty.”

Mike will also point to the farce created by an earlier outsourced organisation when the Glasgow Housing Association Ltd awarded one of their repairs and maintenance contracts to a private building company – Connaught, only to find they couldn’t meet the contract specifications on covering the workforce pensions.

Mike will say “Connaught had to be sacked and that workforce returned to their previous employer – City Building, after they spent 2 days travelling around the city – from Hampden Park, to Connaught, to GHA, to Glasgow City Council.”

Moving the composite motion on Public Services, Mike will also point to the huge waste of taxpayers money being paid to management and IT consultants to recommend efficiencies and shared services. Billions of pounds that should have been spent on the services themselves. The composite will set out a charter to defend and build on the public service consensus in Scotland.

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