"Veolia's identity is being concealed to protect it from the possibility of councillors
making a moral choice based on its wrong-doing. I implore you to exercise your right to know exactly who it is you are expected to reward with £39 or £40 million pounds of our council taxes."
Campaigner Diane Langford to Canterbury Council on 3rd October.

Council Bosses Demand Councillors Award £40 Million Contract to
Anonymous Bidder!

Campaigners in the public gallery watched in disbelief as a handful of
Tory councillors voted to approve an anonymous bidder for the £40
million waste contract.
Councillor James Flanagan (Lib Dem, Westgate) opened the debate by
announcing that he could not vote on the matter as he would never vote
on an issue without knowing what he was voting for. “It is like being
asked to go into a polling booth in which the candidates’ names had
been removed,” he said.

A few minutes later, even Tory councillors looked stunned when Larissa
Laing, Head of Waste Services, told them, ‘You have no option but to
vote for Bidder 2, or there will be no waste contract.’

Councillor David Hirst (Greenhill and Eddington, Con.) said ‘I resent that the
council has put me in this position’ and ‘What am I doing here? I am redundant’.
He later abstained on all the propositions, including the one to approve Bidder 2
and send the item to the executive for discussion and final endorsement.

During the debate Leader of the Opposition, Alex Perkins (Wincheap, Lib Dem),
who had moved a proposal to defer a decision until the full facts were known, asked
if he should declare an interest.‘Go on then,’ said Chair, Alison O’Dea (Gorrell, Con.).
“Well, I would, but I can’t because I don’t know who the companies are’ he said.
The discussion at the council’s overview committee then began with a passionate speech
by Councillor Brian Staley (Lib Dem, Little Stour) asking councillors to exclude Veolia.
Diane Langford of the Bin Veolia Campaign implored councillors to refuse to accept council
bosses’ ruling to conceal the identity of their chosen Bidder 2. Ms Langford said,
‘the moral choice has been redacted.’ She added: “Veolia cannot complain that it’s been
excluded, but its identity is being concealed to protect it from the possibility of councillors
making a moral choice based on its wrong-doing. I implore you to exercise your right to know
exactly who it is you are expected to reward with £39 or £40 million pounds of our council taxes.”

Two bidders had put in bids that were very close when costed out over a ten-year period and
took into account pledged repayments to the council in the form of royalties. Over a ten year period,
Bidder C would pay £450,000 back to the council in recycling royalties, as opposed to £200,000 by
Bidder B over the same period. Councillors wanted to know why council bosses had not presented
them with these options? They were assured that the redaction of the names of bidders and the denial
of choice between different bidders was ‘standard procedure,’ while campaigners called the process ‘unprecedented’ and ‘Kafka-esque.’

Chief Executive, Colin Carmichael, repeatedly referred to the danger that if councillors would not vote
for Bidder B, they would be left without a waste contract and ‘we would have to renegotiate with Serco.”
Ms Langford said “How can councillors claim it is standard practice to expect councillors to vote for
something when they don’t know what it is? Is it standard practice to treat councillors like children and
assume they have no personal integrity and cannot keep confidentiality? “

Councillors voted 3-5 on a motion to defer the decision and 3-7 at the
end of the debate on a motion to approve the selection of anonymous
Bidder 2. There were 11 councillors with voting rights present.

Executive Meeting, 11th October: members of the council’s executive
will also be asked, using the same process, to endorse Bidder 2
without knowing who they are. The chief executive announced at the
overview committee that executive members will be given the name of
the chosen bidder at the end of the executive meeting, after the vote
has been taken. He said that any councillor will have the right to
request that the matter be called back to the Scrutiny Committee.

The Executive will be addressed by Hugh Lanning, deputy general
secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Professor Clare
Ungerson and Julie Wassmer, writer and local campaigner.

About Hugh Lanning:
As deputy general secretary of PCS, Hugh has special responsibility
for negotiations with the Cabinet Office.
He covers equality, international issues and disputes for the union.
He is also Chair of the national Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and
was instrumental in the landmark decision taken by the TUC to support
the boycott campaign of settlement goods. He is Vice Chair of Unite
Against Fascism.