PCC is achieving his pledge to insource services.

John Tizard committed in his election manifesto and then subsequently in his Police and Crime Plan to insource support services where this was in the public interest.

John is a nationally recognised expert on outsourcing and insourcing public services and has written extensively on these subjects.

Over the past five years, he has advised and produced reports for UNISON, the John Smith Centre, and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on the case for bringing previously outsourced public services back into direct public sector delivery.

His approach to insourcing has influenced government policy across all the public sectors. He has designed the nationally recognised public interest test which should be used to assess outsourcing arrangements and guide insourcing. Securing the public interest through insourcing and better procurement | UNISON - the public service union

From this month, cleaning services across the Bedfordshire Police estate have been insourced, replacing the previous contract with a private sector provider.

The twenty-five staff who worked for the contractor have transferred to Bedfordshire police in accordance with TUPE legislation. They will move to police staff contracts, and terms and conditions. There will be no zero hours contracts, and all staff will be entitled to a pension. UNISON has been involved in implementation of this move.

Bringing the service in house will provide the police with greater flexibility and the staff with better and more secure terms and conditions.

Alongside the cleaning service, boiler maintenance, water hygiene works and elements of minor maintenance previously delivered through external contracts have also been brought back in-house and will now be undertaken directly by police-employed staff.

The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) is now considering other areas of service delivery that it would be more beneficial to deliver through in-house service delivery rather than through outsourcing supplier. In the longer term bringing these services in-house, whilst initially incurring some additional set-up costs, will provide the service greater flexibility and cost savings.

PCC John Tizard said:

“I am pleased to be making progress on my commitment to bring services which have been outsourced into the police service. I have long advocated that inhouse provision is more often in the public interest than outsourcing.

“Public services must be productive and efficient but should never be run at the expense of the staff who all too often especially areas such as cleaning when they work for outsourcing contractors have poor pay and poor terms and conditions. This is morally wrong. It does not lead to better outcomes.

“I am looking at further opportunities to insource services when this is in the public interest.”

UNISON Eastern regional organiser Cathrine Ward said: “This is great news for the cleaners, who can now enjoy better working lives. It’s great news for their new colleagues, who will have better, more responsive cleaning of premises.

“And its great news for residents as in-house provision represents far better value to the taxpayer.

“It’s fantastic to see John fulfil his manifesto commitment and return these staff in house where they belong.”