Called Morrison Scotland, the venture is a limited liability partnership, 33% owned by the council and 67% owned by Morrison. It will also be the vehicle for all future Morrison contracts across Scotland.
The 10-year North Lanarkshire contract, which began yesterday (24 January) is worth at least £30m a year. Services include round-the-clock housing and commercial property maintenance, medical adaptations, school refurbishments and blacksmith products.
Morrison Scotland takes over service delivery from Maintenance & Property Care (MPC), a previous JV between Morrison and the council that has looked after housing and property maintenance services in North Lanarkshire for the past decade.
Morrison Scotland managing director John Boyd said: “Over the past 10 years Morrison has built a strong relationship with North Lanarkshire Council and together we have been able to deliver improvements both in value for money and service for residents.”
He added: “North Lanarkshire is home for Morrison, with many of our corporate support functions and our registered office based in the region and we are pleased and proud to do business here.”
North Lanarkshire Council assistant chief executive Russell Ellerby said: “Our model for this type of partnership has reaped huge dividends over the last 10 years, with an excellent repairs performance and financial return. For example, in the final year of the last contract £2.9m of dividends and discounts were returned to the council.
“By 2020 we expect that the unit cost of repairs will have reduced by 30% since 2001 and councils across the UK have adopted elements of our model.
“However, just as important is the increase in prosperity and wealth to the wider community of North Lanarkshire through the support of social initiatives, which allow us to deliver real economic support through job creation and a sizeable spend with other local businesses.”
The Morrison Scotland Training Academy has also been set up in partnership with Motherwell College. It plans to train more than 1000 people in the North Lanarkshire region over the next decade.
The academy will provide learning and development across four key areas. The four strands include providing 20 apprenticeships and 30 second chance apprenticeship a year; employment matters courses for up to 50 people a year who are unemployed or from disadvantaged backgrounds to help them gain job seeking skills; and Morrison’s trades development programme for 20 employees a year.
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