By Richard Johnstone
5 May 2011
Suffolk County Council has put on hold its controversial plans to outsource almost all its services to the private and voluntary sectors.
The authority decided last year to focus on commissioning rather than providing services. Successful bidders would take on a host of divested functions, from running libraries and children's centres to property services.
However, the plans have been postponed following the resignation of Jeremy Pembroke as leader of the Conservative council in April. Deputy leader Jane Storey has taken over as acting leader until Mark Bee takes office on May 26.
The council said Pembroke had stepped down because he did not plan to stand for re-election in 2013 and believed that a new leader should be given the opportunity to ‘make their mark’ ahead of those elections.
A spokesman for the council said that Bee now wanted to ‘take a breath’ to examine the plans – known as the New Strategic Direction – which he admitted had caused ‘a lot of anxiety’.
He added: ‘It’s not a change in the plans, it’s approaching them in a different way. There is a period of reflection and taking stock, asking: are we doing everything that we can to do things in the right way?’
He added there was no timescale for when the council would announce what would go ahead, but the appointment of a new Cabinet meant it was unlikely to be this month.
When the plans were announced last September, Pembroke said that they reflected the financial deficit in the public sector and the coalition government’s priority to reduce the deficit and the size of the state.
‘The coalition requires lesser government and a bigger society, and Suffolk County Council has responded to this change,’ he said.
The council hoped to save as much as 30% from its £1.1bn annual budget by commissioning most of its services from private companies and social enterprises, but experts said the scale of savings was unlikely to be met.
Plans to farm out the running of libraries to community groups have already been put out for consultation and a report will go to the council’s Cabinet in July.
The council spokesman said: ‘No services have been divested yet and no decisions on changes to libraries have happened yet.’
