DSU Steering Committee ruled today that there was no constitutional barrier
to the part privatisation of the staircases in Dunelm. Joint Committee, who had proposed the original motion to hand control of some aspects of the staircases to a private company, were said to be delighted with the ruling, made after ambiguities in the constitutional legality became apparent.
Joint Committee believes that a public-private partnership is the only way to modernise the aging staircases, but members of Finance and Services Committee disagree, raising questions of whether the scheme offers staircase users best value for money, and condemning certain aspects of the scheme as fatally flawed. A report presented to Joint Committee in closed session is rumoured to contain information to support this, but Joint Committee has so far refused to release the document, something which under the Freedom of Information standing order they are not obliged to do.
A member of Finance and Services Committee, which is supporting attempts to overturn Council's decision on behalf of several ordinary members of the union, said that he believed it to be in the public interest that this report is made public
and that if the report, as Joint Committee claimed, supported the PPP, they would have nothing to hide.
Joint Committee has denied this, saying that the report contained information that would be sensitive to the bidding process, and that it would be released at the appropriate time. Under their proposed scheme, the repair and maintenance of the staircases would be given to a private company, with overall control of the system remaining with DSU. Finance and Services Committee are said to be uncomfortable
with this proposal, as it would leave certain areas of responsibility confused, with the possibility that DSU officers would have to take responsibility for decisions that they had no control over, and pointed out that improvements had already been possible under the current system, with most of the staircases already repainted.
Finance and Services Committee is considering whether to appeal the Steering ruling to an Internal Appeals Tribunal, a spokesperson for the Committee saying:
While we accept Steering's judgement that there is no part of the Union regulations that would hinder the PPP from proceeding, we believe that there are other considerations outside of these that it would be wise to have examined in more detail than was available to Council. We do not wish to comment further at this time, as we believe that to do so could be seen as prejudicial to the case.
However, a leaked report from the DSUSL board of directors may offer a novel, if twisted solution to the whole problem. Were DSUSL to take on the PPP contract, the responsibility could remain within DSU, and accounting arrangements could save some money from the budgets.