In a move that will dismay
the community and distress the many individuals and families directly affected,
Capita today announced its plans to relocate council services around the UK,
making mass redundancies inevitable. Jobs lost to Barnet will go to Belfast and
Bromley, Chippenham and Chertsey, Carlisle and Darwen, Sheffield and Swindon.
Barnet
Alliance spokesperson Barbara Jacobson says: ‘This is just what the Barnet Alliance feared when it campaigned
for the consultation that was unlawfully denied to Barnet residents. What
Capita describes as “driving towards Barnet plc and a successful
London suburb” completely ignores
the facts that the people losing their jobs are part of the community, that the
community is not a public limited
company, and that Barnet was a successful London suburb before the takeover. ‘
People who move to retain
their job might feel compelled to do so despite the fact that their children’s
schooling will be disrupted, they will have to move away from close family
members and friends to an area where they have no connections, they might find
it difficult to sell their home or find appropriate new accommodation, and they
face a future of lower income and pension contributions.
The people who are made
redundant because they cannot afford to uproot their families for these reasons
will suffer the stress of finding new employment in the depressed labour market.
If they remain unemployed, the money they would have spent in the community is
lost, affecting local businesses. If they eventually need to receive benefits,
they will suffer more hardship and not only will the state have to pay those
benefits but the council will also lose their contribution to council tax.
No one wins, except Capita,
who will employ cheaper labour elsewhere and cream off millions of pounds in
profit at the expense of hard-working people and the local community, as it has
been revealed they have done in Birmingham. Instead of ‘a successful London suburb’,
Barnet will become an increasingly depressed area of angry and resentful
residents.
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