Barnet goes in-house on waste and green spaces

I am very glad that the Council look like they are going to go for an in-house bid for the waste and green spaces.

As a ward Councillor, I have written many times here about my concerns with the state of Cherry Tree Woods. I am concerned about litter, the regularity of bin collections and the filthy state of play equipment. I hope that any changes could lead to improvements in the service and tackle these problems.

Politically, I think this is a good step forwards as well, as it shows that in-house bids can be acceptable to the Council. I do not regard the One Barnet process to have had a proper competitive tendering process, as in-house bids were not considered a all. In fact they gave it less consideration than they did a joint venture for the DRS contract.

I think the council could learn from this and look more sympathetically at in-house bids and proper competitive dialogues.