The head of a Glasgow charity has strongly criticised Government procurement programmes, saying the provision of public services was increasingly facing "privatisation by stealth."
Joe Connolly, chief executive of Ypeople (formerly YMCA Glasgow), was speaking as the charity faced demonstrations over plans to evict more than 70 failed asylum seekers. It is set to hand responsibility for housing existing claimants to the multinational corporation Serco.
Earlier this year Ypeople lost out to the company in the awarding of a contract for the transport and accommodation of asylum seekers thought to be worth £12.5 million.
While providing accommodation in Glasgow, Ypeople has been housing those who would otherwise be destitute due to the failure of their asylum claim.
However, Mr Connolly warned that Ypeople had lost the contract to provide asylum seeker accommodation and transport in Scotland not because of the quality of its services, but because Serco was cheaper, and that there had to be doubts over the company's ability to carry out the work.
"We were beaten on price, but also on ideology," he said. "We were assessed every year and came out well on cost, quality and sustainability. There were financial penalties if we didn't."
When the UK Border Agency scored the bids for the work, Ypeople's services were judged best, he claims. "We beat them on quality but only just. There should have been a country mile between us."
Serco will subcontract the work to estate and letting agents Orchard & Shipman, but neither company has ever provided this type of support to asylum seekers, Mr Connolly said. In an interview for the Herald's Society page, Mr Connolly said Government procurement in areas such as unemployment and social care was now routinely handing huge public sector contracts to multinational firms. "This is privatisation by stealth," he said.
"If these companies provide a quality service, that is OK, but I'm not sure the evidence is there that they will."
He argues that the need for profits for both private sector companies and their sub-contractors, means a poorer deal for the taxpayer. "Before any services are provided there's a profit margin. But with the voluntary sector, surplus money is ploughed back into services."
A UK Border Agency spokesperson said Serco, and the other two multinationals which won asylum support contracts, G4S and Reliance, had demonstrated they would deliver quality services in a fair and trans-parent bidding process based on both quality and value.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article