HART District Council has been nominated for a prestigious public sector award following a “ground-breaking” move which could lead to savings of £40 million.

The move involves the joining of forces with four other councils in a money-saving shared contract scheme.

“United by their vision to deliver improved, more affordable services”, the five councils involved say they are on their way to a projected £40 million worth of savings as the services enter into new contracts with Capita and VINCI Facilities.

The deal has now been nominated in the ‘Most Innovative Service Delivery Model’ category of the LGC’s 2017 awards.

Brian Burchfield, Cabinet member for corporate and customer services at Hart District Council, said: “I am delighted and not surprised our pioneering partnership has been shortlisted for an LGC Award. It is one of the most ground-breaking initiatives I have seen in my years of local government service.”

Under two shared contracts Hart District Council, Havant Borough Council, Mendip District Council, South Oxfordshire District Council and Vale of White Horse District Council have joined forces to provide a range of services in a move that will “provide great value for money for residents”.

The two contracted companies will deal with all corporate services including HR, IT and finance which will be provided by Capita, one of the UK’s leading business process and support companies.

While VINCI, will provide facilities management and property and parking services in partnership with Arcadis and Indigo.

Hart said the extensive experience the two companies have across the public and private sectors will allow the councils to continue to improve services for residents while also delivering enormous financial savings at the same time.

The two nine-year contracts, involving the five districts which are up to 85 miles apart, marks the first time a group of councils have looked beyond their immediate neighbours to share services in this way.

The two contracts started in South Oxfordshire and the Vale of White Horse in August this year and for the remaining councils, it is now being phased in as of September and will continue to be bought in through to October 2017.

Mr Burchfield, was overjoyed at the news of the deal, and after its announcement he commented: “This contract is extremely important for all five councils and showcases how if partners are committed to joint working and share the same goals that even geographically dispersed local government bodies can work together to save tax payer money and continue to improve the services they deliver to its residents. 

“Our five council consortium is being closely observed by central government and many local authorities across the country.

“We invite any council to contact us about how they could join our consortium to help them achieve the savings they seek. 

“The partnership we have with Capita and VINCI Facilities means that all councils involved continue to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to meeting the economic challenges we continue to face.”

The partnership deal will present its model to a judging panel in January 2017 and will find out if it has won the award on March 8.

The announcement of the deal however has not come without criticism, with UNISON, one of the UK’s largest trade unions, serving more than 1.3 million members expressing concerns about the impending outsourcing of jobs that may come with the deal.

Regional organiser Natalie Platts said: “The proposal was that combined services, relocated in various hubs across the south will result in cost savings.

“UNISON pointed out that this will result in redundancies due to work relocations, local jobs will be lost from the economy and the public will lose local service provision.

“We are concerned that the quality of services will suffer as some areas of work have been overlooked in the transfer and key posts have been removed.

“Some of these gaps are now being covered by extra staff, which further erodes the anticipated savings.”

“Importantly, the big challenge for the councils in the project is dealing with the loss of control and accountability as these services are outsourced.  Already, the five councils are having to invest in a costly ‘client team’ to make sure the contractors do their job correctly,” she added.

“We are promised the Five Councils’ Partnership will save the taxpayer money, but the figures we’ve seen suggest each council expects to save only £1 million per year which is really a drop in the ocean in terms of the money that is needed to sustain local services in this era of imposed austerity.

“The real problem is that local government are continuing to face unprecedented and increasing cuts and are struggling to maintain services. 

“It’s early days yet, but it remains to be seen whether five councils in different parts of the country, working with 4 different contractors delivering a hotchpotch of services will derive any benefit from this endeavour at all.”