Aberdeen council leaders have refused to rule out outsourcing services following a heated debate yesterday.
The local authority is aiming to trim around £250million from its budget in five years as part of a massive restructure and has already proposed cutting 370 jobs through voluntary and early redundancy.
Employment lawyer Michael McLaughlin of the firm DWF has been tasked with helping the council move forward with the Target Operating Model.
Yesterday members of the strategic commissioning committee clashed when the opposition SNP group proposed a ban on any council services being outsourced in the future.
Group leader Stephen Flynn said: “I believe we now have the option to draw a line in the sand and tell our staff there will be no more outsourcing of services.
“We have seen in every way that it doesn’t work so why would we want it to possibly happen now?”
He was backed by party colleague David Cameron, who said: “You just need to look to the NHS in England, it has been privatisation by any other name since 2010.
“We certainly don’t want it to happen in Aberdeen.”
But Aberdeen Labour’s Sarah Duncan urged members said she was “not ideological” about the issue – pointing out that services such as road repairs and cleaning were already often carried out by contractors.
She added: “Setting an absolute rule of ‘no outsourcing’ is just the wrong thing to do.”
Committee convener Jenny Laing added that taking services back into the council was also being considered.
She added: “This is just an attempt to grab a cheap headline by the SNP.”
The SNP amendment was defeated by six votes to three.
