A Burntwood councillor has accused Staffordshire County Council of “selling off” education services.
In 2013 the authority transferred staff to Entrust, a joint venture with Capita,
But now some elements, including school meal provision, have been switched to a new provider, Compass.
Sue Woodward, Labour’s representative for Burntwood on the county council, said the move was wrong for taxpayers and staff.
“The Conservatives at Staffordshire County Council sold their staff to Entrust less than two years ago with a 49 per cent share of the business,” she said. “Now all the assurances given appear to have been thrown out of the window as Entrust sell off staff again to another private operator.“The 49 per cent share means nothing and this is so unsettling again for these people, many of whom are dedicated to their jobs in supporting schools and their students.
“It beggars belief.”
Cllr Woodward said that many schools had only found out about the change from the Entrust-employed staff.
She said: “For this to come out the day after schools were renewing their contracts seems to me to be a case of misrepresentation at the very least. It’s all been done without any reference back to the council, the 49 per cent stakeholder, and realises the fears that Labour raised at the time.
“On top of that, we were told that the county council and its taxpayers would receive a dividend from Entrust as its business developed. It was the Tories’ big selling point for the transfer.
“That is now looking less and less likely and the county’s residents are worse off as a result.”
But Cllr Ian Parry, Staffordshire County Councils cabinet member for finance insisted there had been no sell-off.
He told LichfieldLive: “Some people have got the wrong end of the stick and is motivated by people who are are desperate to find a reason why it was a bad idea in the first place.
“We outsource all sorts of contracts. We set up Entrust as a commercial organisation. To remain competitive what we have to do is make sure we have the right channels and supply chains to make sure schools receive a good service in a competitive way.“We believe there’s a better way of delivering services by using a contractor rather than doing it ourselves.
“Compass are a national company which produces more school meals than any organisation and are experts in the field. They therefore have the economy of scale, capacity and expertise to provide a better service to those schools.
“We haven’t sold anything, we haven’t given anything away. We have agreed a contract for Compass to deliver services on our behalf for a number of years.
“Entrust are still the supplier who are accountable for the service. This is simply a contractual arrangement to make it a more competitive and appealing service for our schools.”
Cllr Parry believes that move towards outsourcing services was one which is desperately needed in order to meet current challenges.
He said: “The old school, in-house service would have been limping along, pouring public money into an insufficient service.
“We agreed as a council was that we were going to set up a commercial operation that was going to compete in the school services market.
“Labour would like us to hanker back to the old way of inefficiency, but this is a new competitive market and we are saying that we can deliver these services in a more competitive way if we use an external contractor who has more expertise.”
