Barnet’s Labour party has been accused of “scaremongering” voters with a new website urging people to oppose the council’s One Barnet outsourcing programme.

The opposition group launched its ‘Better Barnet’ campaign on Friday, complete with a website dedicated specifically to halting the controversial scheme.

Through One Barnet, the borough’s Conservative party is looking to outsource up to 70 per cent of the authority’s services through contracts totalling in the region of £1billion.

Tenders for Development and Regulatory Services and Customer Services are nearing the final stages and are expected to be confirmed by the end of this year.

The Labour group says it has a responsibility to inform voters about the negatives of the programme but Councillor Dan Thomas, chairman of the council’s cabinet resources committee, believes the party is sending out mixed messages.

He said: “I’m confused about their stance. The amendments they made to our budget in March were so small they were clearly accepting the One Barnet programme. We’re still in competitive dialogue with two organisations so it is a bit rich for them to oppose something without knowing the final details.”

On the new web page, Labour says it is campaigning to stop the authority “selling off critical council services” but Councillor Thomas has criticised the site for being misleading.

“I think there is an element of scaremongering from Labour on this - they are not being open minded. They keep using the term ‘selling off’ but that is not the case. The companies will be delivering services for us but we will retain overall control and that will be scrutinised. The wording is quite misleading.

“When I knock on doors, people are not against the One Barnet programme. People want services to be well run – they’re not that bothered who runs it.

“We already outsource services in waste, leisure and social care and we have very few complaints about those.”

Labour group leader Councillor Alison Moore defended her party’s stance on One Barnet.

She said: “We have been critical of the programme right down the line. I think Councillor Thomas is being disingenuous and a bit daft to suggest we have not been against it from the start.

“People have seen the way the current administration has dealt with issues like parking and they are concerned about the way they will deal with this.

“This is the most fundamental change in this council’s history and it is important people understand that.

“We have a responsibility to up the ante on this and represent the people who voted for us.

“Once these services have been outsourced it will be almost impossible to bring them back in-house. We have a number of months in which to make a final case against this.

“The most important thing is to stop this juggernaut before Barnet’s services are changed forever.”