The Government proposes to replace Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) in local government with its own Best Value scheme by April 2000. Until then, the Tories’ CCT legislation will continue to apply. Both trade unions and local authorities have been looking forward to Best Value, which they expect to be fairer and less onerous than CCT. In fact, early indications are that Best Value will be even more far-reaching in its impact than CCT. From April 2000, local authorities will be expected to test each aspect of the services they deliver against the benchmarks established by Best Value — and against putative private sector performance.
Even after 18 years in power, the Tories had stopped well short of the compulsory privatisation of every local government service. When the Tories suggested a year ago that social services and social workers should be privatised the idea was met by howls of protest and the proposal was quietly dropped. However, under the New Labour Government, every local government service, including child protection social workers, old peoples’ homes, housing management, etc will have to be tested against the private sector.
The exact mechanism of Best Value is not yet clear. The Government’s gloss on this is that “Best Value” means something different from “cheapest price”. Although the criteria for Best Value have not yet been published, the indications are that non-price considerations will be given minimal weight. It seems certain that in any case where the private sector offers to deliver the same quality service at a cheaper cost, local authorities will be required to privatise.
The scheme abounds with buzz-words (“leading change”, “performance culture”) and mechanisms for monitoring services: performance indicators, customer surveys, etc. The results of constant market-testing are familiar to anyone involved in local government. Those staff currently providing the service are constantly under pressure to justify their existence and ensure that they remain funded for another year; as a consequence, they develop a short-term attitude. So long as their monitoring results are OK, they concentrate on delivering the service at the cheapest possible cost. There is no room for innovative methods of service-delivery and little good-will or long-term commitment.
The whole dynamic of Best Value is towards private-sector delivery of services, described as “partnership”. In the Government’s model for local democracy, councillors’ principal role seems to be to award contracts, not to control directly and be accountable for services provided to the public.
The Government is inviting local authorities to compete for the privilege of piloting Best Value schemes. In Islington, six schemes have been proposed as pilots. Two are already up and running: leisure services has been transferred to a private company, and refuse collection/street sweeping is being transferred to a Joint Venture owned 80% by a private company and 20% by the Council.
The plans to privatise refuse collection/street sweeping in particular have been opposed both by the trade unions and by the general public. The public knows perfectly well that a private company with a ten-year contract will be less accountable than the members of the Council (who have to seek election every four years).
On top of this, the Government insists on retaining the power to cap “excessive” local authority budgets and has done nothing to ease the complex legal and financial restrictions imposed by the Tories. The much-heralded “phased release of capital receipts” has been so phased that, certainly in Islington, it has hardly made a dent in the backlog of Council housing repairs.
For the last ten years, Labour councils across the country have been forced to make cuts in services and jobs. We told the public again and again that it was not our fault; the Tories had left us no alternative. Now, in Islington, we have been informed by senior officers that we will have to continue to cut our spending by some 5% every year for the next decade — a process that will be accompanied by sweeping privatisation.
Best Value seems another shoddy attempt to make a virtue out of an alleged financial necessity. Labour councillors must tell the Government now that what local authorities need is restoration of democratic powers and a fair share of resources, not another dose of Tory austerity, and another bonanza for the private sector cowboys.