Burnley Council has re-jigged its partnership with outsourced service provider Liberata bringing 35 staff back to the town hall. The authority has brought four key services in house and extended the revised deal by two years.
News of the shake-up – which was decided by senior councillors behind closed doors in June – emerged when the agenda papers for Thursday’s (January 16) executive meeting were published including a recommendation to appoint a new £64,404 head of property and facilities management.
The original 10-year £37million strategic partnership deal with Liberata was signed in 2015. Now Burnley Council’s resources boss Cllr Maggie Lishman has confirmed the authority has extended the collaboration by two years until the end of 2027.
Under the revised agreement, agreed by the executive in June in private session, Liberata will continue to deliver services for Revenues and Benefits, Customer Services, IT, Payroll, and HR administration. Facilities Management, Property Services, Environmental Health, and Licensing will return to direct council management from April 1.
Cllr Lishman said: “Our partnership with Liberata has been a success. We have achieved significant savings.
“The contract price is fixed, so a 20 per cent saving is forecast in the final years of the current contract. Another success has been job creation – Liberata has created new jobs in Burnley to support its contracts with local councils in other parts of the UK.
“For these reasons, I am pleased that we are extending our partnership with Liberata until the end of 2027. The services we are bringing back in house have performed well under Liberata’s management.
“However we believe there are greater long-term advantages to bringing property services and environmental health and licensing under direct council control. Bringing the services back in house is cost neutral – the charge paid to Liberata is reduced by £1.2m and this will pay for the in-house service.”
The transition of services back in-house will impact approximately 35 positions. The council has not yet made a decision regarding its partnership with Liberata beyond 2027.
Burnley Council’s opposition Labour group leader Cllr Mark Townsend said: “It’s unacceptable in my view that the decision to extend the contract with Liberata – which delivers multiple important front line public facing services – was held completely in private with no transparency and no public consultation.”
Charlie Bruin, chief executive of Liberata said: “We are proud of our strong partnership with Burnley Council. We are delighted to extend our partnership until 2027.”
* Pendle Council has outsourced a number of services to Liberata since 2005 including Revenues and Benefits, Customer Services, IT, Human Resources and Payroll. Property Services moved back in-house on April 1 last year. Its current contract comes to an end in 2030.
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