Councils face strike action over outsourcing deals

Trade unions are warning that failing to consult staff could result in strike action as a number of councils step up plans to outsource their IT operations to the private sector.

Following on from the near strike by 100 IT staff at Bradford in February over a £100m outsourcing deal, Unison is warning that it could propose action at Swansea City and County Council.

Swansea is currently in talks with three companies over a 10-year 'Service@Swansea' project for desktop, infrastructure and application support, the integration of systems including CRM into its legacy systems and a 'one-stop shop' website and contact centre for citizens using council services.

A Swansea council spokesman would not reveal who the three bidders are or what the timetable is for the project, although the tender proposal includes the possibility of a joint venture arrangement.

"Certainly one option is outsourcing, which would mean IT staff transferring to the partner under their existing salaries, terms and conditions and pension arrangements," he told silicon.com. "However, bidders are also being asked how they could deliver Service@Swansea if ICT Services remained in-house."

But public sector union Unison has criticised the council in a local newspaper report for not consulting with the affected IT staff, some of whom only found out about the proposals from publicly available tender documents on the internet.

Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council is also in the middle of consultation with its IT staff about plans to outsource its ICT infrastructure, although no decision has yet been made.

A Rochdale council spokesman confirmed to silicon.com a number of options are being considered, one of which would be a packaged outsourcing of IT and other business functions in a business process outsourcing (BPO) deal.