SYDNEY CASH POURS SOUTH

SYDNEY CASH POURS SOUTH (LATEST NEWS)

(Sunday Telegraph 3^rd April 2011) By: Jesse Phillips.  

The City of Sydney is paying a Melbourne City Council company millions of dollars a year to clean parks and gardens, now lawns and remove graffiti from public buildings in Sydney.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that under Lord Mayor Clover Moore, Sydney’s council has awarded more than $33 million worth of outdoor maintenance contracts over the past three years to a company wholly owned by its Melbourne counterpart.

Citywide Services Solutions – which was created by Melbourne’s City Council in 1995 – holds three well-paying Sydney contracts, including one for the maintenance and up-keeping of the city’s 250 parks, open spaces, sports fields, traffic islands and roundabouts.

The parks contract, which includes maintenance of Hyde Park, is worth $16.2 million over three years. It was won after a tender in 2007 and has been extended for another year, with the possibility of another 12-month extension at the end of this year.

The company also holds an $11.2 million contract for the City of Sydney’s street tree  maintenance services and an almost $6 million three-year contract to provide floral diplays for Sydney’s annual six-week Living Colour festival.

The deals mean millions of dollars of ratepayers’ money is flowing from Sydney’s coffers, benefiting Melbourne.

It highlights a weakness in NSW council service delivery that has been exploited by the far-sighted Victorian operation, which can provide basic services to local councils cheaper than they do it themselves.

NSW operators are furious with Sydney Council’s decision. The managing director of a company which unsuccessfully tendered for the open spaces contract said: We can’t understand why they would award the contract to a company from Melbourne Council, for work with Sydney Council, when are all capable and competitive enough to do the work ourselves.

A spokeswoman for Sydney council could not explain why the Victorian company could provide better and cheaper services.

When assessing tenders, the City of Sydney’s primary concern is ensuring value for money for ratepayers and selecting the best service provider, the spokeswoman said.

Citywide is an independent company with its own legal entity. Under the Department of Local Government guidelines, all private entities are entitled to tender for City of Sydney services.

All NSW local councils are required to tender for works valued over $150,000 and the spokeswoman said Citywide had supplied the best bid.

Liberal councillor Shayne Mallard said he would ‘prefer to see the money stay in NSW’ but all tenders were vigorously assessed.

I would call on all NSW horticulture companies to join together and get their act together, he said.