ESSU has launched a PPP Database on Strategic Service-delivery Partnerships (SSPs) in local government. It covers 35 contracts in corporate, ICT and technical services in Britain with a total value of £7.3 billion with nearly 14,600 staff. The PPP Database consists of seven tables covering SSP contracts, those in procurement, regional distribution, employment models, private…

Somerset County Council and Taunton Deane District Council signed a £400m Strategic Service-delivery Partnership contract with IBM in September 2007. The Joint Venture Company, Southwest One, is the first SSP to have a framework agreement to enable other local authorities and public bodies to obtain services bypassing the procurement process. It is also the first…

58,000 .pdf and .doc files were downloaded from the ESSU website in 2007, a 45% increase on the previous year.

The Research Report identifies the scope of major cost overruns, delays and terminations in 105 outsourced public sector ICT projects in central government, NHS, local authorities, public bodies and agencies in the last decade. There has been wide reporting of individual and department or authority-wide project failures in the national and ICT press but little…

ESSU has worked with Newcastle City UNISON with a report and presentation to Members and senior officers detailing the case against the outsourcing of meals at home, resource and day centres.

ESSU has completed a study for Newcastle Tenants Federation which examines the options for the future of the Arms Length Management Organisation of the housing service.

Dexter Whitfield, Director of the European Services Strategy Unit, has been appointed Adjunct Associate Professor at the Australian Institute for Social Research, University of Adelaide, Australia.

Somerset County Council and Taunton Deane District Council UNISON branches have commissioned ESSU to prepare a report to draw out the lessons of the £400m contract awarded to IBM and Mouchel Parkman with an unprecedented level of secrecy and ‘commercial confidentiality’.

The report raises major questions about the way the ISiS project has been managed; the absence of any form of public impact assessment of the project; and the adequacy of the proposed retained client structure and governance arrangements. It was commissioned by Somerset County and Taunton Deane DC UNISON branches.

A detailed study of the longer-term impact of changes in the design, structure and financing of PPP/PFI projects, external economic and political drivers such as growth of the secondary market and government modernisation policies, and the effect of economic, social and employment change. The report also examines PPP/PFI performance, democratic accountability and transparency, the impact…