Firms line up to take over Wakefield Council services

A private company will take over services including school meals and cleaning after government budget cuts meant Wakefield Council could not afford to run them.

A shortlist of five firms which could take over the council’s property, buildings and facilities services has been announced as the authority is forced to slash £185m from its budget over the next five years.

AMEY, Carillion, Cofely Workplace, Interserve, Mitie Facilities Services are in the running after the services were put out to tender.

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Coun Les Shaw, Wakefield Council’s cabinet member for transformation, said: “We have now shortlisted five companies as prospective partners to work with us to provide a group of our core infrastructure services, with the intention that this will keep jobs in the district with more security than the Council can currently provide.

“We want to have a new service up and running by summer 2015. I am very pleased with the response to the initial part of the tendering exercise and the high calibre of the companies who want to work with us.”

Wakefield Council has already cut £58m from its budget over the past three years, and will have to save another £61m by 2015.

The authority faces cuts of £185m by 2019-20 due to a reduction in the funding it gets from central government.

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Building, facilities management, property and asset management, building cleaning, school meals and buildings-related architectural design will be taken over by one of the five companies.

Coun Shaw added: “We will now be embarking on a competitive dialogue process with those shortlisted companies prior to selecting the successful partner.”