After the collapse of the housing maintenance firm Connaught , 2,500 jobs where thought to be at risk but Morgan Shindall, a construction group have acquired the bulk of Connaught’s operations in a reported £28 million deal.
Even though Morgan Sindall has picked up the majority of the group’s public-sector contracts, some posts are still at risk. Connaught’s parent company and social housing maintenance division went into administration this week, putting 4,400 jobs at threat of redundancy.
The GMB union had called for both Connaught’s employees and maintenance contracts to be transferred back to the public bodies that had originally outsourced the work.
Rehana Azam, GMB’s national officer for outsourced public services, said: “The services Connaught provides should be brought back in-house by the councils and other public bodies that contracted them out in the first place.
“This reduces the risk to all involved, including rate-payers and residents, the public purse and the thousands of staff providing the services and their families.”
Azam also criticised the policy of outsourcing essential public services, calling Connaught’s collapse “the tip of the iceberg”.
“As the collapse of Connaught shows, the private sector cannot always be relied upon to provide vital public services,” she said.
The Connaught group employs a further 5,000 staff within its compliance and environment divisions, these areas are still making a profit but will eventually be sold off, currently these jobs are secure.
