Council renews Serco contract

Coun Marianne Overton, Lincolnshire Independent Councillor for Bassingham and Welbourn, said they would monitor the contract closely.

The contract includes all aspects of the council’s customer services, including for highways, education, transport, libraries, heritage, adult and children’s services and road safety.

It will also support the council in the development and delivery of new digital services to improve its customer services.

The decision to award the contract to Serco was confirmed this month following a formal competitive tender process.

Sophie Reeve, assistant director commercial at LCC, defended the council’s decision, stating: “The contract was awarded to Serco following a formal competitive tender process.

“This approach is also less expensive than delivering these services in-house, saving taxpayers’ money while maintaining quality of service.”

She further highlighted that the customer service centre managed by Serco had recently retained its Customer Service Excellence Award, a testament to its high standards and hardworking staff.

However, the decision has not been without its critics.

Lincolnshire Independents Councillor Marianne Overton expressed concerns about the transparency of the contract awarding process, in particular that the decision had not gone before a recent scrutiny committee ahead of final approval.

The decision to outsource the operation of the Customer Service Centre services to external suppliers was approved by executive councillors in June and scrutiny councillors in May of 2022.

However, the contract was only confirmed this month, August 2023, raising questions about the delay.

Coun Overton said: “I have asked for the information. I haven’t yet got it… I’ve asked for the papers that back up the decision.”

She also recalled the initial problems when Serco first took on contracts for Lincolnshire County Council almost a decade ago.

Coun Overton emphasised the importance of scrutiny, stating: “Obviously, on scrutiny we’ll continue to monitor their performance as we always do, and then call them to account for them to look as necessary.”

Mark Bennett, Serco’s managing director for customer professional, expressed optimism about the renewed partnership, stating: “We look forward to making further improvements to services under the new contract and working with the council to develop new and exciting accessible digital services.”

In 2014, Lincolnshire County Council signed a £70 million deal with Serco for services including finance, HR, ICT, and customer service operations.

However, the partnership faced early challenges. Just eight months into the contract, Serco had to apologise for payment errors to teachers and other public sector workers.

The following year, an independent review found Serco had overpaid council staff by around £1 million. Despite these setbacks, the council chose to extend the contract with Serco until 2022.