Chesterfield Borough Council’s financial crisis took another disastrous turn after the plans to privatise the Corporate Services function were thrown into disarray on Thursday.

Two of the three companies who were involved in the tender process have now pulled out leaving the cash strapped Council in an extremely vulnerable position.

The Council, run by the Lib Dems since 2003, was relying on a £1 Million incentive from the ‘winning’ bidder but will now find their hand considerably weakened in what promised to be very difficult negotiations already.

Toby Perkins said: “This is disastrous news. Right from the start Labour have been calling for an internal bid to be considered but the original bidding document was gerrymandered to ensure that the privatisation option was the preferred direction. The arguments in favour of pursuing this privatisation were always pretty flimsy, but following this, it is hardly credible that the Borough Council are going to be able to negotiate a good deal for Chesterfield taxpayers or to keep their guarantee of Chesterfield based jobs.

Labour have joined UNISON’s calls for the whole privatisation programme to be scrapped and for the Council to once again return to looking towards keeping the service in-house and rewarding the hard working employees at Chesterfield Borough Council with the job security that they deserve.

“The workforce at Chesterfield is already lean and productive and it comes as no surprise that two companies have decided they cannot make a profit from the contract,” commented UNISON East Midlands regional organiser Dawn Bushnell.

“UNISON is amazed that a council would press ahead with only one bidder left in the game. This process is now a sham and should be halted.”