A shared service that deals with council tax, housing benefit, non-domestic rates, debt recovery and customer services for Thanet, Dover and Canterbury will have some of its responsibilities taken over by a private contractor.
Cabinet members at Thanet council discussed the development of a business case to outsource the council tax, housing benefit, non-domestic rates, debt recovery and customer services functions of East Kent Services (EKS), which currently looks after those areas for the three councils, last night (October 3),
Savings
EKS was formed five years ago to provide IT,HR, revenues and benefits and customer services. It has saved the three councils £6million but from 2018 the organisation will need to make savings of between £300,000 and £500,000.
A report to Cabinet members said this would mean some 30 redundancies would have to take place. The report states: “EKS is now at the point where cutting services in line with its partner Councils’ affordability constraints will start to have a direct impact on service quality, raising the risk of service failure and performance degradation on Benefits (error bonus and payment time) and Council Tax and Business Rates collection levels as well as Customer Services.”
Business case
Several changes to the service were reviewed. Councillors agreed the option to allow EKS, which currently employs 300 people, to develop a business case for outsourcing:
- Council Tax Administration and Enforcement
- National Non-Domestic Rates Administration and Enforcement
- Housing Benefit and associated services
- Council Tax Reduction Scheme and associated services
- Debt Recovery
- Customer Services
The report says: “Rather than a traditional outsource of service, it is felt that a strategic Commercial Venture with a private partner has the potential to protect and grow jobs and develop services whilst delivering savings.”
Cabinet members agreed to approve the business case for entering into a strategic partnership and contract for the delivery of the Revenues, Benefits and Customer Services functions and to request the East Kent Services Committee to give effect to the recommendation.
The decision is still subject to all three councils agreeing and this will not be confirmed until 19 October.
A council spokesman said: “The decision, if agreed by all three authorities, then authorises the East Kent Services Committee (EKSC) to undertake the detailed contract work and negotiation which will lead to a confirmed set of contract terms. This will then come back to the EKSC in due course for their final decision on whether to award the contract. This will be the key decision point.”
Has the full Council voted on this? What about the people who use these sevices? The last time this happened it was with housing and we sent homeless people all over East kent to be housed regardless of their need for support from families, doctors etc. It cost a fortune for housing to be run from Canterbury and took TDC years to break even.