TRICURO’S Independent Chairman, Colin Dennis, (Letters, December 16) is right that the cause of the current dispute at Tricuro is a £1.3m hole in the 2016/17 budget.

The critical questions are how was that allowed to happen, and who was responsible?

Before the company was set up and went live in July 2015, the councils that set up Tricuro all worked on a detailed five-year business case.

Page 8 clearly says that it has been drawn up on the ‘assumption’ that ‘Staff terms and conditions – will not change’ and councillors promised the staff that they would not be affected.

So, how is it, that just nine months later, a £1.3m hole appears in the budget. Where has it come from?

As Colin Dennis says, the budget hole comes from a 3.4 per cent increase in employer national insurance contributions (£306,000), increments (£224,000), the 1 per cent pay award (£300,000), the cost of implementing the government’s living wage of £7.20/hour (£142,000) and the extra cost of transport (£322,000).

But £830,000 of those costs - the employer’s national insurance increase, increments and the pay award were all known about BEFORE the company was set up.

As Tricuro itself told councillors on February 19 2016, these were cost pressures ‘not included’ in the business case.

Why weren’t they included in the business case?

Were Councillors told that the business case they were asked to approve had a whopping great hole in it?

You do wonder whether this business case would have got past Lord Sugar’s advisers on the Apprentice.

Who is being asked to pay the price for this failure?

Is it the councillors who took the decision?

Is it the consultants who advised on the business case?

No, it is the low paid staff who were transferred to Tricuro on the promise that they would be unaffected, who now feel utterly betrayed.

PETE CHALLIS

National Officer UNISON

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