could 5% cuts mean end of privatisation?

Why did privatization fail, because the contract companies are cleverer than the government organizations they are working for
Macquarie taking over Thames Water, they should never have had the assets transferred to them, enabling them to asset strip the utility. That’s an extreme case but all the companies are making money from work outside the contract specification, that has to be done.

PoliticsNerd

Just a wider view MaizieD.

Based on what? You're the one calling for evidence after making an unevidenced statement 😁

As someone who calls themselves PoliticsNerd you appear to be very unaware of some important facts.
Failure of privatisation is all around you.
I give you one example.
When the buses were privatised I managed the printing and publicity department of one of the largest companies.
We all knew exactly what was going to happen. The shame was, the general public thought they were going to get a better service.
As an aside the 4 directors received a large some of money for our pension fund. I was told that by the company secretary.

tribunemag.co.uk/2023/12/how-bus-privatisation-screwed-post-industrial-britain-thatcher

I forgot to mention they sold our pension to Equitable Life 😂 adding insult to injury.

MaizieD

PoliticsNerd

Just a wider view MaizieD.

Based on what? You're the one calling for evidence after making an unevidenced statement 😁

Okaaay.

Then rephrase to "just asking for a wider view".

petra

As someone who calls themselves PoliticsNerd you appear to be very unaware of some important facts.
Failure of privatisation is all around you.
I give you one example.
When the buses were privatised I managed the printing and publicity department of one of the largest companies.
We all knew exactly what was going to happen. The shame was, the general public thought they were going to get a better service.
As an aside the 4 directors received a large some of money for our pension fund. I was told that by the company secretary.

tribunemag.co.uk/2023/12/how-bus-privatisation-screwed-post-industrial-britain-thatcher

I'm not at all sure what you want me to reply to petra. Perhaps you don't, but just want to express your opinion.

Obviously you are entitled to do that but it doesn't feel like a move towards a discussion.

The fostering cos I know of are charitable organisations. Yes they will have CEOs etc but so do Councils who have a fair salaries. Indeed, L. A. workers generally are paid a better hourly rate than in private companies when it come to service provision. A 5% reduction will either be through less staff, better application of existing staff to enable more to be achieved thus reducing need to employ more for ever increasing workload. Of course costing supplies can help. Heard yesterday about the scandalous cost of folders provided to MPs to keep their papers in, more than double the one on sale in the Parliament shop at £32.99!!!!!

I wouldn't hold my breath. It's true that privatised services are usually more expensive than in-house unless the private operator cuts the service to the bone but contracts often have years to run and escape may involve compensation.

ayse

Our council outsourced running of allotments and public spaces to a so called Not For Profit company called Urban Green. They have outpriced the 100 year old fishing club and the park maintenance has certainly not improved. My local park just over the road has lost its rubbish bins, the cafe has closed and it seems little maintenance has been done.

I looked up the owners who are all on LinkedIn! They are all CEOs/Finance managers etc.

They have spent their whole budget, leaving a huge short fall and the council have had to take back control!

So much for private enterprise running a public service. I’d bet they paid themselves handsomely in the process.
Our bin service is fine though so it’s not all bad.

Looking back over the last 40 years, privatisation has not improved essential public services. They should be in public hands or controlled and regulated in out interest. This is currently not the case.

I completely agree, privatisation hasn't improved services but it has enriched many fat cats & your example of allotments sounds typical. I don't think it would be that difficult to renationalise services, trains are about to do it, you just inform staff that their boss will now be xxx instead of yyy in just the same way they did when private companies took over services. You just need some good managers to do it. The existing contracts do need to expire though, it would be too expensive to get out of them early.

equal pay claims are not that simple. We are not discussing whether a man or a woman does the same job but a similar job. Equal pay is quite complicated as it is comparing skills etc so school cooks with dustmen for example . Part of the issue is that many councils paid bonuses to dustmen and not school staff.
As an ex civil servant , the department was given a budget BUT then the government would ask us to reply at least £1m. This request is not new and one of the reasons as to why the country is in a mess. You can't run departments with insufficient money and allocating to one budget . I could have bought a phone/fax machine for less than one one and one fax machine but the government (all colours) is obsessed with separate budgets . So one machine is considered technology and the other communications - 2 budgets so 2 machines.
2 machines are more costly than one