Wednesday 20 July 2011

Lambeth gives £60m to… Southampton

Whatever happened to Lambeth’s ‘cooperative council’? Rather than creating locally run services for local people, they’re shipping jobs to Southampton!

The Council’s decision to outsource a £60m revenue-collection and call-centre contract to Capita, a private company based on the south coast, means dozens of local jobs will be lost.

Furthermore, next time a Lambeth resident calls the Council with a problem, they will probably end up speaking to someone who has never even set foot in the borough.

To make matters worse, Capita has a dreadful record in this area. They were in charge of housing and council tax services in Lambeth between 1997 and 2001, but the service had to be bought in-house after the council declared its service to be “unacceptable”. Are we sure they’re going to do a better job this time?

There’ll be a
demonstration against the plans outside the Town Hall tomorrow, Thursday 21st July, at 6pm. Be there if you can!