When the Liverpool BT joint venture was first set up it was mooted as the new way of doing business. This wasn’t outsourcing it was partnership. Staff would retain their terms and conditions. Liverpool wouldn’t be ripped off like many outsourcing deals. This was different. Except it wasn’t. It is a painful and powerful lesson for politicians of all political parties to learn. If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck the chances are it is a duck. The BT joint venture was outsourcing in any other name and designed to boost the profits of BT not make services better for the people of Liverpool.
Now Liverpool has taken the bold and right step to end the contract.
Let’s hope that now the council takes heed of the hundreds of council contracts that have been successfully insourced, saving money, reputations and delivering better local services. Because if you take out profit you can concentrate on delivering good public services.
Read the APSE guide to Insourcing which includes case studies like Bradford that insourced their disastrous education contract and now run a good in-house service. If councils are prepared to show political leadership then we would see a much faster demise to the outsourcing fiasco.
Anna Rose
