WARRING city councillors clashed during a heated debate on the planned outsourcing of bin collections across Worcester to a private firm.

Passionate exchanges at the Guildhall saw Conservative cabinet members compared to “North Korea” style decision-makers while papers were ripped up and cries of “outrageous” were heard.

The scrutiny meeting on Tuesday (August 18) focused on Labour opposition members’ attempts to force a re-think on the privatisation policy.

But their efforts to “call-in” the Conservative approach, which will see a private firm take over bin collections in a tri-council deal involving Malvern and Wychavon, were defeated by one vote.

Labour councillors lambasted the proposed move, claiming a contractor would put profit before service quality, and criticised the decision-making process for lacking scrutiny and transparency.

Conservatives however strongly defended their stance, stating the project – which will also include a Worcester-only contract for the outsourcing of street cleaning and park maintenance - would save the council a minimum of £250,000 a year for an initial investment of £200,000.

Councillor Lynn Denham, who led the Labour calls for a re-evaluation of the privatisation policy, said: “This decision will have a profound impact on the council and on the most high profile, core services we provide to the public.

“There are implications about the loss of direct provider control and concerns about flexibility to meet the needs of Worcester in the future.

“The citizens of Worcester don’t want this and the Conservative cabinet have not considered all legitimate options such as a council-owned Teckal company or a shared service.”

She added an array of other concerns on topics such as potential redundancy costs, the future of the Worcester Show, the ongoing finances and expertise required for contract monitoring and the complications of shared management.

Her fellow Labour councillors cast doubts on the “extremely flawed” report by consultants GlobeEC, which has been used to inform the outsourcing strategy, and questioned whether the suggested savings could actually be achieved.

The harshest criticism however perhaps came from councillor Anthony Warburton, of Malvern Hills District Council, who was invited to speak at the meeting but was not officially representing the local authority.

He lambasted Worcester City Council’s cabinet for its outsourcing strategy, which would leave Malvern and Wychavon as “bit part players”, and even suggested “this sort of decision-making process would do credit to North Korea”.

But Conservative councillors hit back at their critics and praised the privatisation policy as the best way forward for the city.

Councillor Marc Bayliss, deputy leader, said: “We believe that, in very difficult times, this is the only way to maintain standards and services for the people of Worcester.

“But accountability can never be outsourced and the buck will always stop with the city council.

“This policy will mean a change to the way we operate but it will not be a profound change for the people of Worcester.

“Crucially, for an initial investment of £200,000 in procurement costs, this will mean savings of a minimum of £250,000 a year – that’s £2.5 million over the contract period.”

The meeting of Worcester City Council’s scrutiny meeting on Tuesday evening (August 18) took place after Labour members issued a “call-in” of the cabinet decision to outsource bin collections, street cleaning and park maintenance, which was made on Tuesday, July 28.

It was held as an extraordinary meeting rather than waiting for the scheduled scrutiny meeting in September because Conservative members were wary of the tight timescales for procurement.

Consequently two key people – councillor Andrew Roberts, portfolio holder for a cleaner, greener and safer city, and David Sutton, service manager of these council operations – were not present due to holidays.

The outsourcing of services is expected to commence in 2017 and will affect 114 jobs.