By Bruce Robbins

CONTROVERSIAL PROPOSALS to privatise Dundee City Council’s leisure services will be the “tip of the iceberg” with other departments likely to suffer a similar fate, the GMB union claimed yesterday.

The union’s regional organiser John Begley said the privatisation plans, which will be presented to councillors on Monday night, had left him “extremely worried” about the future of other council services.

The union official was reluctant to say which services might be next in line for fear of alarming staff in those departments. However, he said there were services that might be the subject of privatisation moves because they were less emotive than other services such as those for children.

The council’s proposal envisages a private company being established to take over the running of the Olympia Leisure Centre, Lochee Swimming and Leisure Centre and the Dundee International, Lynch and Douglas sports centres.

Almost 120 council employees would have their employment transferred to the new body. The move would, according to the council’s chief executive Alex Stephen, save around £640,000 a year.

Mr Begley said that money would go towards paying the costs of a single status agreement which would result in manual workers and APT&C employees enjoying a common pay grading structure.

Mr Begley said that, even if it were possible for the council to meet the costs of the single status agreement in this way, the requirement to implement an additional equal pay agreement—effectively levelling the salaries between men and women doing the same job on the council —would cost the local authority much more.

He said, “This is an absolute concern of mine and I have no doubt that this initial privatisation would be the tip of the iceberg. What we are seeing is the thin end of the wedge.

“Where are they going to get the money to fund the equal pay agreement? There are clearly services that are much easier for the council to lose.

“Even if the councillors say on Monday night that they want to go ahead with privatisation of leisure services, we have to put as much pressure on them as possible.

“If the council thinks it is facing a real problem, they should talk to us about it.”

Dundee’s administration leader, Councillor Jill Shimi, was unavailable for comment last night.