Interserve to show Audit Commission improved performance on Liverpool contract

Interserve will tomorrow (Wednesday) have to convince the Audit Commission that it is improving performance on its seven-year housing contract with Liverpool City Council, despite being threatened by strike action from around 450 disgruntled workers.

Commission inspectors will spend the day meeting Interserve and the council to see what progress is being made and carry out the first stage of its re-inspection of the contract which will be completed in March next year.

However, officials will be aware that a decision over whether to take strike action will be made next Wednesday after workers gave 100% support for a ballot for strike action following 63 redundancies, 38 of which were compulsory.

The council's repairs and maintenance programme received a 'no star' rating from the Commission in November last year due to poor planning, weak communications and links between repairs and maintenance.

Recommendations included better planning, improving cost-effectiveness and reducing the 60:40 ratio in favour of reactive work.

"The council is disappointed with Interserve's performance," said a source. "All the signs are at the moment that the inspectors won't like what they see when they visit. What they won't want to hear is that Interserve refused workers to come to work after putting them on gardening leave."

Interserve's senior contract manager, Martin Darlington, said recent chain of events should have "no bearing" on the meeting and re-emphasised that the job cuts were made from "excesses of trades" and because there wasn't sufficient workloads
.