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Sita calls for DoE probe
Page 14
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• No private contractor will bid for tenders from large socialist local authorities if they continue to indulge in anticompetitive behaviour, Richard Barlow, chief-executive of private contractor Sita, has warned.
Sita has just asked the Department of the Environment (DoE) to intervene over Wolverhampton Borough Council's rejection of the company's bid for the council's refuse collection contract.
The contract will remain inhouse even though Sita's bid was almost 21m lower than the council workforce.
"Our bid was 27.2m over a five-year period compared with the in-house bid of 28.1m," says Barlow. The council said there would be 21.2m of 'unavoidable corporate costs' if Sita was awarded the contract."
Barlow considers 2300,000 for redundancy payments to be an "allowable" figure, but he strongly disputes almost 21m towards pension payments, holiday entitlements and central support service costs.
"Certain socialist authorities are determined to avoid private contractors at all costs and are indulging in brilliant creative accountancy to do so," he claims.
It is not the first time Sita has asked for DoE intervention. It is already waiting for a decision on the awarding of a contract to Merseyside-based Knowsley Council's own work force, despite its bid being £350,000 more than Sita's.
"If these authorities can turn enormous savings of the type we can offer into apparent increases in cost then no-one is going to play," warns Barlow. U Public sector union Nalgo's privatisation bulletin lists 18 out of 28 refuse collection/ street cleansing contracts won by council workforces. It reveals that private contractors have won nine of them but four of these were already in private hands, 0 The DoE is currently investigating more than 80 claims of anti-competitive behaviour, a spokesman says. So far only one, Wirral Council, has offered the contentious contract back for re-tendering.