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Cleaning ‘monopoly’ claim as firm wins estates contract
French company is handed deal without having to tender for job
ONE of the world’s largest multi-national companies last night (Wednesday) won a third lucrative cleaning contract without facing a single competitive tender.
Veolia Environmental Services, part of French-owned Veolia Environnement, took over the cleaning of Camden’s housing estates as part of a Town Hall cost-cutting exercise that will see 40 caretakers’ posts axed.
After Veolia ran a £300,000 pilot cleaning project on six Camden estates last winter, the council last night agreed plans to merge estate cleaning with a renegotiated street cleansing contract. There will be no tender process.
Veolia already holds the council’s largest regular contract, which includes waste collection and recycling, renewed in April at a cost of £140m over seven years.
There was no competitive tender for that £19.5m-a-year deal – council chiefs accepted that since only Veolia owns waste depots in north London, it was the only possible bidder. The council has sold off all of its own depots over the past 15 years.
On Tuesday, Veolia regional director Pascal Hauret said that the company had not yet been informed about the estate cleaning contract, but that it had won previous deals because it provided excellent services at a good price.
Mr Hauret said: “There are a lot of companies operating in London and I wouldn’t say we dominate the market. The most important thing for clients is whether the service is right; the most important thing for us is to deliver the right service. We do find depots – other companies may think it is not possible.
“Large contracts are difficult to tender and operate, but at the moment we are happy with our partnership with Camden.”
According to surveys, the borough has among the cleanest streets in London and its recycling is within government targets.
But making council staff redundant and replacing them with a private contractor which has not had to bid for the contract is a matter of concern for unions.
Graham Sinclair-Pilch, secretary of the Camden Apex branch of the GMB union, said: “It is ridiculous that you have a situation where you have a supposedly competitive market in which there is no way that any other company can bid for work. Veolia have got this job and they have got it for life because they are the only ones that hold the depots – it is like a game of monopoly.”
The councillor in charge of estates, James King, said merging the estate cleaning project with Veolia’s wider cleaning duties made commercial sense.
He added: “At this point we could, in theory, go for a competitive tender for estate cleaning, but one of the reasons we think we’re going to get a better service from Veolia is that they are our street cleaners, and Veolia’s record is very good.
“What we have done here is test the performance of Veolia against the in-house team, and the results of the residents’ survey shows a high level of satisfaction.”
Details of a third contract, for education grounds maintenance, were being clarified as the New Journal went to press.
Council documents show that Veolia is paid £68,088 a year to maintain and run Chase Lodge sports pitches, a Camden-owned facility in Barnet, and some schools pitches.
But on Tuesday, Mr Hauret said Veolia was not the contractor.
Caretakers outside Tuesday’s meeting on the Clarence Way estate in Camden Town |
Who will care? Jobs threat staff speak out
FROZEN pensioners stuck in their homes during cold snaps, drug addicts’ needles littering playgrounds and mounds of rubbish piling up: this is what council tenants face after the Town Hall handed over a cleaning contract to a private firm, caretakers have warned.
The council staff are considering strike action if, as planned, 25 per cent of the workforce are laid off and the remaining caretakers are given new patches twice the size of what they currently cover.
At a stormy meeting on the Clarence Way estate in Camden Town on Tuesday afternoon, the Town Hall’s assistant director of housing David Padfield faced questions regarding how the new system would work, what it would mean for the tenants who rely on caretakers and also how the figures added up.
One caretaker said the Town Hall had ignored residents and did not understand the role caretakers play in keeping estates clean and safe. “What if there is broken glass in a child’s playground, or needles?” asked one caretaker. “Will we be expected to leave them there until Veolia makes one of their weekly visits?”
A council spokeswoman said: “The council estimates that if the scheme is rolled out borough-wide there will be savings of approximately £145,000 per year. Caretakers have been informed that there may need to be around 13 non-resident caretaker redundancies if the roll-out goes ahead.”
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