Rubbish collections, council homes and tackling ASB - has Peterborough benefitted from handing over control of its services?

The changes mark a shift in approach from the council, which is now firmly in control of waste collections, fostering and fines for anti-social behaviour.

Previously, the Conservative administration has defended it decision to outsource services to other providers by arguing that they have more expertise and provide better value for money.

And even though the past few months has seen a change in approach from within the Town Hall, current council leader Cllr John Holdich insists seeking external provision has been a success.

The Peterborough Telegraph spoke to the outgoing leader - who is retiring in May - about whether taxpayers have received the best provision and value for their money from outsourcing services to external providers.

Amey

In 2011, the council signed a 23-year deal to outsource services including waste collection, street cleaning and maintenance of parks and grassed areas to private company Amey.

But it announced in 2017 that it was ending the long-term contract due to poor recycling rates and because it felt it could deliver better value for money itself.

This prompted the setting up of Aragon Direct Services, a council-run trading company which began operating 12 months ago.

Cllr Holdich acknowledged that residents were justified in being dissatisfied with the service they were previously receiving, but insisted Amey had overall proved good value for money.

“When they took over they had a budget of about £19 million. When we took it back in-house its budget was around £9 million. It had come to the stage where they could not make a surplus any more so we took it back,” he said.

“Amey did all this extra work for us and saved us a lot of money.

“The Amey services are what you see when you come into Peterborough. We wanted to get the service back.

“(Outsourcing) was the best thing at the time, not just to save money but to give a better service. In the main that happened.

“Since then we’ve modernised the council so we can do those services better than they can.

“People did not like what Amey were doing. We were saving £10 million a year but were probably not getting what we wanted them to do as they did not have the money to do it.”

Kingdom

From the summer of 2017 Peterborough became home to officers from private enforcement firm Kingdom who began patrolling parts of the city, including the city centre.

Kingdom was brought in to hand out £80 fines for offences such as littering, spitting and cycling on Bridge Street, but there were claims the firm was targeting the most minor offenders, while in April 2019 it was criticised after one of its officers allegedly threatened to fine children protesting about climate change in the city centre as they were supposedly making too much noise.

A Kingdom spokesman said there had been no intention to carry out the threat.

A short time afterwards the council announced it was ending its contract with Kingdom and would carry out enforcement itself, and across more of the city.

Cllr Holdich said: “We entered into a contract with Kingdom when we needed support to tackle a number of issues that were blighting our city centre including littering, begging and street drinking.

“We did not know how to do it and it’s something they’ve been doing, but now we’ve taken it back in-house and spread it across Peterborough. We probably would not have set it up right in the first place (without them).

“The partnership has been a huge success and we have seen occurrences of these (anti-social behaviour) issues greatly reduce.

“We know that the business model used by Kingdom works and that we have the expertise in-house to run the service ourselves, and that by doing so we could retain all the proceeds that the service generates, rather than having to share them with an external provider.”

Cross Keys Homes

In 2004, Cllr Holdich helped set up housing association Cross Keys Homes to take over the running of Peterborough’s housing stock.

He recalled: “We were paying £14 a week to the Government for each council tenant so could not afford to repair the houses. An independent firm said only 40 per cent of the houses were fit for use which was not fair on the tenants.

“So we set up Cross Keys. We had gone to every housing association in the city and they said no.

“Cross Keys as a private entity was able to keep more of the rental income received from residents than we could as a council, allowing it to plough this back into homes which it did, providing new kitchens, bathrooms and front doors. Had we kept hold of our housing stock we could not have done this because of the higher payments we were required to make to the Government.”

Last September, the council announced that it was setting up a Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which will allow it to build council houses for the first time since 2004.

Fostering/adoption

In 2016, The Adolescent and Children’s Trust (TACT) signed up to a 10 year partnership with the council worth more than £126 million to run services including fostering and adoption.

However, it decided to end the contract seven years early after running up large losses.

The services have now returned to the council.

Cllr Holdich said: “Outsourcing fostering - it worked for the council but not for TACT. And we’ve learned a lot from them.”

Other services

Despite bringing some services in-house, the council continues to either outsource or share several others.

Noticeably, this includes the sharing of senior staff with Cambridgeshire County Council, including chief executive Gillian Beasley.

Public health services have also been handed over to an outside firm, while highways services are provided by Skanska, culture and leisure services are run by Vivacity, and a number of council services are contracted to Serco.

Cllr Holdich said: “The council entered the Skanska contract in 2013 for 10 years to provide highways services such as highway repairs, street lighting and drainage. This contract has been a complete success and has enabled budget savings of £750,000 per year to be made.

“The council also entered into a 10 year contract with Serco in 2011 which has recently been extended for a further 10 years. That contract covers revenues and benefits, customer services, procurement, business support, business transformation and strategic improvement.

“It is the same with Vivacity – by transferring the management of our cultural and leisure services into a charitable trust, the council saved approximately £440,000 per year. Vivacity now run all cultural and leisure services in the city successfully and are working with us to reduce the amount of council funding provided each year.”

A success?

On December 31, 2010 the council’s headcount was 2,316 compared to 1,256 today, showing how the authority has stripped back its running of services.

So, has outsourcing been a success?

Cllr Shaz Nawaz, leader of the council’s Labour group, thinks not.

“The Labour group has always strongly advocated that services should be brought in-house,” he said.

“Unfortunately the Conservatives failed to listen to us; ideology always got in the way of the administration doing the right thing. After having wasted millions of pounds on failed projects they have finally woken up to the fact that services managed by the council work better.

“We have more control, we can offer a better service, we can employ local people, we can regenerate the local economy. What’s not to like about delivering services as a local authority? The simple answer is we should’ve done it years ago.”

Cllr Holdich said: “I do believe in local government. Every time we lose a contract I take it personally. But we’ve had cuts in local government and we have to find different ways of doing things and the best way to spend people’s bucks.

“Overall (outsourcing) has been a good thing. It’s made us modernise and saved us money. There’s been a benefit for the taxpayer in Peterborough.

“Some have been more successful than others.”

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