The City of Ottawa should introduce accountability to contractual obligations when outsourcing

Some time ago, the City of Ottawa decided that it would start looking to outsourcing in order to save costs. While residents of former municipalities such as Nepean or Gloucester were dragged into the "new" City of Ottawa in 2000, one should not quickly jump to the conclusion that "old" Ottawans were only too pleased to see their beloved city grow.

I work for an agency that is located in a city-owned building. While I have only been there ten years, I sometimes daydream about the "good old days" where if we needed an electrician to make a repair to our 170+ year old building, a city staffer would quickly swoop in, fix the problem and would move on to his or her next task.

Most of these people have retired in the last five or six years. In order to get service these days, we have to rely on a 'building supervisor' who is in charge of what seems to be a dozen or two other City properties. The process usually involves calling him and hoping he has time to drop by to double-check that a service call truly is required. Once that is done, a call is placed to some local company who then dispatches someone. Sure, the work eventually gets done, but it takes much more time than it used to. We can, to a point, deal with this. I'm almost certain that if a dire emergency came up, we could count on the City staff person and his complement of contractors would come through.

We can almost live with that, because, everything seems to work out in the end. There is a darker side to the world of contracting and it seems that what appears to be a good old boys network at City Hall seems to show little concern. We have a private company hired by the City to clean our building. To say that quality of service has had its ups and downs would be an understatement of epic proportions. Every now and then we complain to the building supervisor who then calls a meeting between the operators of the building (us) and someone from the cleaning company. Concerns would be put on the table, promises would be made, service would improve for a week or two and then everything would start all over again.

This story took a twist last summer. Small amounts of money started going missing. After a few different occasions where money disappeared, the police investigated and made an arrest. The detective who investigated made it quite clear to me that there was no doubt that charges would stick and a conviction would be had. Because the accused had no prior record and due to the bulging court dockets, the accused was diverted into the 'restorative justice' program. In exchange for what would amount to a guilty plea and a donation that did not quite cover what was taken, he was released and all was to be forgotten. That is, at least, what the contractor seemed to hope.

Try and convince City staff to dump this company that obviously has quality control issues and serious staffing problems. Six months later, we're assured that steps are being taken to ensure that the contract won't be renewed. We aren't holding our breath.

Why go through all this detail this morning? The Ottawa Sun published an article that showed how utterly clueless the City is when it comes to staying on top of keeping a sharp eye on those companies that it hires to do its work. At least four signs had been erected in the city that stated "No standing between 11pm and 7am". While "no standing" is a term used in the United States for what we would call "no parking", a French translation literally warned francophones who read the sign that physically standing there was banned during the above-mentioned hours. "Interdiction d'etre debout". I'm sure that Councillor Legendre will issue a press statement today condeming the actions of those who erected the signs, speculating that this is wilful and direct shot aimed at Francophones. Sure it was. Unfortunately, this is likely just another example of a company contracted to erect signs not paying attention to detail. The same thing happened when new City signs were to be installed at my building last year... no attention to detail. I refused delivery and they had to go back and make new signs - hopefully at their cost and not paid by the City.

My point is this - the City has outsourced all sorts of services. It has been in a financial crunch for several years. Contracting out supposedly saves them money. This can only work if the City staff members that remain ensure that we are indeed getting what we're buying. Going for the lowest bidder and allowing them the flounder and do whatever they want without consequence seems to be de rigueur these days.

Someone has to impress it upon senior staff to prioritize the monitoring of contractors. Why senior staff? Because it seems that they are the ones driving the family car, not the Councillors. It seems a bit backwards to me, but that's another story for another day. Call your Councillor and ask a question or two. Maybe you'll convince them to take a deeper look.