Liz Wheatley led the Unison deputation to Camden Council’s full council meeting

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CAMDEN is “strongly exploring” the possibility of insourcing its school catering contract, a meeting heard this week, as union organisers called for all of the council’s private contracts to be brought in-house.

Unison took a deputation to Monday’s all-members session in the Town Hall chamber in which it warned that there was a “two-tier segregated workforce” running council services.

People directly employed by Camden are on much better wages and conditions than those doing jobs for the council under privatised deals.

Next year, Labour chiefs running the council must decide on new contracts for both school meals and its parking wardens. Last year, Unison-backed wardens held several strikes in a successful campaign to secure a pay rise from contractors NSL.

The union’s branch secretary in Camden, Liz Wheatley, told the meeting: “Private companies only ever get involved in public services if they think they can make a profit out of that service, and the only way they can do that is by reducing wages or reducing the services.”

She added: “Not all of the contracts [in Camden] are on the London Living Wage. Our traffic wardens are significantly higher and that’s because they’ve organised and fought back for decent pay.

“But they will all be lower than council workers. I don’t think that’s a good look for a council which quite rightly is championing equalities.”

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She argued that large proportions of the staff working under privatised services were non-white, adding: “We know that when a service gets privatised, the hours get longer, the pay gets lower – and the workforce is more likely to be black.

“So it’s all well and good saying Camden produces gender and race pay gap reports but those don’t include the private companies. We have a two-tier segregated workforce providing services in Camden, and we believe that has to end.”

Ms Wheatley said Hackney Council had shown that there could be “smooth transitions” from private operators to an insourced workforce after a change in the parking service in east London.

She said Camden had to factor in the cost of industrial action in private contracts, adding: “We believe the [parking wardens] strike last year cost our members a lot, but actually we know it cost the council a lot. “We think it will have been a million or a million and a half pounds in lost revenue.”

Ms Wheatley told councillors: “We know there is an additional cost around annual leave and sickness absence policies but they are things that should be rights for workers.

“They should be on the same level as the in-house workforce given they are providing services that residents need.”

Labour councillor Matt Cooper told the meeting: “One of the devilish phrases that comes up in the commissioning of contracts is ‘value for money’ but if a contract is awarded to a company where the bosses don’t listen to the workers, where there is industrial strife and where strikes happen and then the value is a big fat zero.”

Camron Aref-Adib is Camden’s new finance chief

Camden’s new finance chief Councillor Camron Aref-Adib told the Unison members in the room that “we hear you”, adding: “This is a question about what works economically and delivers the best services for Camden residents.

“Often that is insourcing and we have a strong track record of insourcing services where we can show that it provides value for money and value for services.”

He mentioned care staff at Charlie Ratchford and a housing repairs team as examples.

Cllr Aref-Adib said: “We are strongly exploring insourcing our school catering contract ahead of the next procurement cycle and quality will be considered in that decision too.” He added: “We do rigorously assess the best value of contracts.” – See Comment, page 16