£100m outsourcing strike row resurfaces

The row over a controversial £100m IT outsourcing deal at Swansea City Council has resurfaced with technology staff claiming management have broken a promise to evaluate options for staff to remain in-house instead of transferring to the private sector.

Over 100 IT staff at Swansea went on an eight-week strike last year over the Service@Swansea outsourcing plans with trade union Unison claiming council leaders had failed to consult staff and evaluate an in-house alternative.

That strike was brought to an end last October after an agreement negotiated by arbitration service ACAS and the council finally signed a ten-year £100m deal with Capgemini in December.

Part of the agreement was that IT representatives would be involved with council officials on drawing up business cases for the three employment options for affected staff: in-house, secondment and TUPE transfer to Capgemini.

But after obtaining a council document on the employment model plans, IT staff claim it shows management were already gearing up for the TUPE option a week in advance of the official Cabinet decision on 14 April.

A Swansea IT worker said: "The discovery of the full document is the culmination of a catalogue of deceit by council management which proves conclusively that this whole process has been no more than a sham."

A statement issued by Swansea council said no decision has yet been reached ahead of the Cabinet meeting this week.

"Unison’s claims that staff were not given enough time to consider their case and that their views have been misrepresented to councillors are demonstrably wrong. The ICT team’s own report makes no mention of the concerns the union expresses and staff stated their own case to Cabinet face-to-face on 24 March, so there can be no argument over misrepresentation," it said.