Decision on the future delivery of Barnet’s Streetscene services – recycling and waste collection, street cleansing and green spaces maintenance – has been delayed after the Council’s Environment Committee (15 March) ruled out outsourcing the service to a private contractor, and agreed further information was needed on other options for running streetscene services.

Labour councillors successfully argued at the meeting that a full in-house option for the service should be included for consideration when the issue comes back to the Environment Committee.

The three options in the report discussed at this week’s committee were:

In-house with management support from The Barnet Group: To transform Street Scene services with management support from The Barnet Group.

Local Authority Trading Company (The Barnet Group): To transfer Street Scene services to The Barnet Group (or a subsidiary of) on 01 October 2017 for an initial ten-year contract with a three-year break clause; including the TUPE transfer of all staff in scope.

To outsource Street Scene services to a specialist provider(s) via the procurement of a contract(s).

Streetscene services are currently being delivered on a temporary basis in-house with management support from the Barnet Group.

Labour’s Environment Spokesperson, Cllr Alan Schneiderman said “The U-turn by Barnet’s Tory councillors in ruling out the outsourcing of our waste collection, recycling and street cleaning to a private contractor is good news for Barnet’s residents. Rather than wasting money on what could be a worse service, we want to see the highest quality most efficient service. Barnet council staff, who know the Borough, should now be given the opportunity to show how a fully in-house service can do this.”