To want to ban all outsourcing , tendering and rediscover the joys of institutional cohesion?

Well I guess the point is that serco are massively successful in most of the things that they do, as are G4S. We only hear about problems in the news. e.g. g4s runs a young offenders centre here, without any incident that i can recall.
I don't know much about capita.
the mess up over rail franchises was due to public servants getting things wrong wasn't it. not the principle itself. ditto many of the computer systems - if public bodies make a hash of setting up a contract then it will fail.
I am you understand, putting a point of view, in the interests of debate.
Otherwise we could just all sit round going "yes it is awful what they say in the papers, it's all terrible isn't it"
There are a number of issues here...
If there were not advantages to outsourcing many large successful companies would not do it. So we know it must potentially save money.
Whether we want that money to be saved in the public sector or not is another matter.
And whether those in charge of the tendering process (public employees all) are competent is yet another.
Agree that PFI, a special type of outsourcing, was a terrible idea!

It is not competence that worries me - it is integrity.

Greatnan "And I agree that nationalised industries which were not being properly managed should have been overhauled, rather than privatised."

Yes, bad management has a lot to answer for, this can still be seen today in pubic bodies. Often an individual will know and recognise a problem, but knows that doing anything about it will rock the boat. They don't want to rock the boat, they are thinking about their pension, and they know their boss won't mind because their boss behaves the same way.

I mean public bodies!!!

Damn sight more integrity now than there used to be greatnan
I come from a borough in which the council was riddled with corruption for decades. Some of them even ended up in prison. Things are much better run now than they were in those days.

Agree with you Jess, Newcastle being the home of T.Dan Smith and his cronies!

I wish I had your confidence, Jess. I am afraid I believe that there is still widespread corruption - did the hacking scandal not reveal some very worrying links between the police, big business and the press?

Unions are the only protection employees have against exploitation by their employers and it is the work they do supporting individual workers that is almost more important than that they do supporting groups.

I was very grateful to have union support when I had a bullying manager. In a previous non-unionised job I had been in a similar position and had to deal with it without support and ended up with what was essentially constructive dismissal.

What I disliked was the close connection between the union and the labour party that led to union leaders enjoying walking the nationals stage cracking their whips and claiming that they had member support to force what ever political policies they supported onto the LP. I refused to pay the political levy and rarely supported any of the national policies my union's leaders were shouting about. I also found some of the wage demands they made for employees in the company I worked for ludicrously high and unrealistic, but suspect that these were just negotiation ploys rather than real demands.

janeainsworth, T Dan Smith went to prison for what he did which was far less than government ministers do today. They get away with it, giving contracts to their friends, etc.

Evidence jendurham ?
Some politicians may give their cronies tactical advice about how they might go about winning contracts but they can no longer circumvent the rules and procedures - these did not exist years ago.
Even at the level of an individual school you have to have competitive quotes for all contracts over a fairly low bar, and auditors come in to scrutinise your books and procedures with a fine tooth comb. Huge fuss if you have broken the rules.
greatnan hacking was about one of the commodities of the modern world "news" or was it "gossip" in some cases. it was not about the awarding of public contracts.

I used the example of the hacking scandal merely to illustrate that there is still widespread corruption. I could give you many examples of the awarding of contracts to companies with dodgy records, which have been detailed in Private Eye which has no axe to grind. They have not been sued by any of the individuals or companies they have 'named and shamed'.
NHS Direct was not perfect but was at least staffed by experienced nurses. In order to compete with commercial bidders for the 111 service, it put in unrealistically low bids for 11 contracts. When it was realised that a safe service could not be provided at such low cost, it pulled out of the contracts. Harmoni has a third of the contracts It beat Care UK in the bidding, but Care UK then bought up Harmoni and installed as its managing director Jim Easton, who had been with the Dept. of Health and then NHS England where he had overseen the NHS 111 procurement process. Channel 4 Dispatches secretly filmed one Harmoni manager saying 'We had a very bad service....Realistically at weekends we are still unsafe....We don't have the staff to deal with the calls that are coming in'.
The MPs register of interests shows that many are financially involved in companies which stand to gain from the outsourcing of medical services - and that does not even reveal how many of their relatives/friends have such interests.

Is it not possible,*greatnan*, that these MPs, or some of them, were already financially involved in these companies before the possibility of outsourcing arose?

Yes the 111 is not a saga which brings a smile to the face is it. But not corrupt unless I am missing something. But it stems from bad management by govt rather than poor ethics. It was never going to stack up to have lots of suppliers AND save money. (just for starters) Oh and do more things than the NHS direct was doing as well.
Just like giving the whole Olympic security contract to G4S was a poor management decision.
As I said, MPs may give advice that may give unfair advantage. But they cannot give contracts. Even at the lowly levels of public life, such as school governing bodies, every meeting starts with the chair asking if anyone needs to "declare an interest" in any of the agenda items.

Nightowl Is spot on with the agency social worker bit. Been there seen the evidence. Recruiting agents get paid commission for people recruited. The quality of staff varies enormously.
In general employment I cannot help but feel that with outsourcing and contract labour the employees are likely to feel less involved with the work they are doing as they do not develop the same relationship and loyalties and possibly care less about what happens.
I am sure most people work better if they feel that what they are doing is appreciated by someone on a personal level. We all need a few pats on the back.
How many GNrs with a regular cleaner would want to use fast changing agency workers with whom you cannot develop even a working relationship.

I am afraid I can't believe that everybody with a vested interest, possibly at arms-length (i.e. a relative has an interest) will declare it.
Is it right that the accountancy company that has devised numerous schemes of tax avoidance should be appointed as an advisor to the government - on tax avoidance?
However, if people are happy to believe that councillors and MPs are mainly motivated by a desire to improve the lot of their fellow men, who am I to try to shake their belief? Perhaps the numerous examples given in Rotten Boroughs in PE are just the odd few rogues. And CEOs of councils, health care trusts, etc. do not take huge pay-offs and take up an identical job in another area almost immediately.
The salaries of CEOs are mostly decided by remuneration committees. Clearly, A and B cannot recommend vast increases for each other, as the shareholders might smell a rat, so A recommends one for B, B for C and C for A. Cosy.
Ceesnan, any MP having a vested interest should not take part in any decisions regarding a particular subject.
I will leave this subject now and perhaps I should stop reading PE as the endless accounts of fraud, self-interest, and corruption just make me very angry.

It's a sweeping statement Greatnan "the rich, strong and powerful have always exploited the poor, weak and powerless" (think I remembered that correctly) I agree in some cases but there are also many instances of philanthropy by the rich, not just in the past but also currently. I'm not surprised you feel very angry if you feel this way.

JessM, I do not need to give you evidence. Greatnan is doing it for me.
One of your examples is schools. What do you think Gove is doing when allowing his friends to set up free schools, and taking money away from the state school system, even in areas where there is no need for another school.
The NHS system is now getting full of government cronies. Just look at the list of board members of Monitor. They are all ex board members of McKinsey, KPMG, etc. Pulse, a magazine for GPs says that 1 in 5 CCG board members have potential conflict of interest. 23% are directors, owners, partners or shareholders in private healthcare providers.
Pulse also said that 38 CCGs did not have a publicly available register of interests on their website. That might have changed now, but I'm with Greatnan on this.

I agree with most of what you say Jess. I worked for a huge organisation which decided to outsource a large section of its work. I had produced statistics on the efficiency of the different, but similar, departments which pointed to way of making huge savings but they had decided to outsource at great expense. The jobs went to Poland and India and the company decided that they would accept the lower level of service to make the financial savings. Such is life.

This morning I heard a programme talking about the 111 service and it was said that the Civil Servants in charge had decided how much it would cost to provide the service and then outsourced at about 30% cheaper! They have a duty to look at the bigger picture when they outsource such contracts. I felt the same about the G4S debacle.

Although we might all like to think that 'profit' should not be the main motive we do need to understand human nature, whether it is a boss or the humblest employee, self interest will in most cases come first.

Jess among other things Capita administers the Teachers' Pension Scheme.

Oh, I think I understand human nature only too well!

Movedalot I think it is sad that you feel 'self interest will in most cases come first'

My work experience is not that . I have been fortunate to work alongside many, many people who did not put themselves first. They made sacrifices and worked hard when they could have just said ICBA to make sure a job was well done. Except for temporary student work in retail and private care homes I have always worked as a 'public servant'.

I thought you were leaving this subject Greatnan !!

nanaej I was basing that on what has been said on this thread, some say employers are self interested, some say the unions are. We see the press bashing just about everyone for their selfishness................. I have worked with people who have worked hard for the good of the business and also with some lazy so and sos! Have a look at my flippant thread about employing idiots and ask yourself if that person had any interest at all in her job

I have seen it. There are some people who are not as bright as others. She may have been a very lovely person. Whilst I understand how frustrating it can be when someone does not understand something that appears obvious to you or is clearly not right for a job I think 'idiot' is a bit unkind.

But I was being flippant nanaej I didn't want anyone to take it very seriously!