Councillor Phil Davies, Deputy Leader of the Labour Group, summarised the reasons for the call-in, as detailed in the agenda item 2, and in the light of substantial changes to the PACSPE contract since the report to Cabinet on 22 July, 2010 (minute 84) when Option3 was approved. He was concerned that the latest report to Cabinet on 13 January, did not include information concerning the following key issues:

-  Some services had been removed from the tender specification and clarification was needed as to which services would be included in the contract.

-  There was no financial information on the value of the revised contract.

-  There was very little information on the impact on staff.

-  To what extent have the public been consulted on the revised specification?

-  The absence of information on the total value of the contract and the projected savings.

-  The refusal to entertain an in-house bid and denying staff the opportunity to demonstrate that they could match the saving targets.

-  The radical change to the original proposal which would effectively reduce the value of the tender by 50% was a major change which should be reviewed before going out to tender.

Councillor Steve Foulkes, Leader of the Labour Group, outlined the reasons for his opposition to the privatisation of the Parks and Countryside Service (option 3), as set out in the call-in notice, without proper consultation with the public, stakeholders, and the trade unions.

He urged Cabinet to reconsider its decision to rule out the in-house bid (option1), which based on the trade union’s own financial projections, indicated that an initial investment of circa £200,000 could yield £1m of savings per year over the next 10 years.  He pointed out that there were costs associated with the procurement exercise for option 3, in the order of £150,000, and potential risks in entering into a long term contract with an external provider based on a best case 7.5% saving, particularly at a time of severe local government cuts in resources which could reach 30 to 40%.