Torbay LG Branch - Reshaping Portal

Welcome to the UNISON Torbay Local Government Branch Website - Reshaping Torbay Portal

So what is this 'Reshaped or Pearshaped' all about?

Briefly, the Government has promoted a drive towards 'Strategic Service Delivery Partnerships' (SSDPs) with private companies and ‘third sector’ organisations, with a view to making local government more 'efficient' and cost effective.

This is part of the push towards a 'commissioning' model of services, whereby Torbay Council will no longer directly provide public services such as refuse collection, benefit payments, social care, highways maintenance etc, but will pay outside contractors to deliver these services to a specified contract. Officers will step in between councillors and ‘delivery partners’ to choose and monitor services they provide, so removing a vital link that runs from voters and taxpayers in Torbay to the quality of their local services.

The change in the role and structure of the local authority and its relationship to service providers is summed up by the phrase "Reshaping".

Torbay Council has paid a great deal of money to management consultants Grant Thornton, who generally favour market solutions to everything, to talk up problems in current service provision and dangle the promise of huge savings through privatisation.

As the APSE report shows, Grant Thornton have produced a flawed business case, thin on evidence-based analysis and following next-to-no engagement with service users and the local community. It has also further opened the door to a dangerous corporate takeover by stealth of public services in our region, something which has already begun in Somerset and Avon with IBM’s majority stake in its SSDP with local councils and police authority called South West One. (Read More http://www.somersetcountyunison.org/pdf/ISiS/SW1Jan08ESSUReport.pdf )

UNISON is concerned about the lack of transparency and meaningful consultation on the Reshaping strategy. The impact of changes that are ill-thought through could be hugely damaging to the Bay, in economic and social terms, as well as to the health of local democracy and accountability. Voter turn-out in local elections is already low as people feel disenchanted and disenfranchised. This is why we are concerned the Reshaping strategy may go ‘pearshaped’.

Torbay Council employees in particular will be interested in reading a recent UNISON survey of front-line staff experiences with SSDPs, carried out by the European Services Strategy Unit (formerly the Centre for Public Services).

This survey notably uncovers problems with the creation of multi-tier workforces on different terms and conditions, poor job and pensions security, reduced investment in training and development, plummeting service quality, and management high-handedness and lack of consultation over reorganisations and ways of working. Read what Frontline staff say about Strategic service Delivery Partnerships here http://www.european-services-strategy.org.uk/outsourcing-library/employment-impacts/what-frontline-staff-say-about-strategic-servi/unison-ssp-staff-survey.pdf

The APSE report makes clear that Torbay Council is not a poor performing council, it is not facing financial ruin and that many service improvements can be achieved in-house through a proper review involving the workforce and services users.

The report adds further backing to UNISON’s view that Torbay Council’s dogmatic faith in the healing power of markets is misplaced, as shown by a number of failures in SSDPs across the country, which have led to major costs and upheaval in services, and the weakening of local authorities’ capacity to regain direct control over these services, or even monitor performance adequately once they have been outsourced.

As the Audit Commission noted in its recent report

"Not all SSDPs will achieve the benefits sought. Similar collaborative arrangements in the private sector have a failure rate estimated to be as high as 60 to 70 per cent ….."

(Strategic Service Delivery Partnerships "For Better or Worse", Audit Commission. Read it here http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/Products/NATIONAL-REPORT/2EC60F18-BDC2-4faf-98AC-2E495B8B6CBD/ForBetterOrWorseJan08REP.pdf)

To raise awareness of these issues and ensure that there is proper scrutiny of these proposals, UNISON has invited a wide range of key stakeholders in the Bay – including service users, business, community organisations, and local politicians - to a conference at the Grand Hotel, Torquay, on the 18th July 2008 to discuss the 'Commissioning Model' and the implications of the APSE report.