Dirty Business TV Drama

I wouldn't trust SW Water.

Hope you have a water filter!

Allira

Shocking that they acknowledge it is even happening!

DO Something about it!!

I wondered if they'd seen the programme this thread is about?
The council will say they trust SWW!

Shocking that they acknowledge it is even happening!

DO Something about it!!

Down at the beach this morning, these signs are new along the seafront. At least the council is now warning when this happens.

FranP

Sadly Maggie decided that she would "cut the civil service at a stroke". Two things I remember vividly - they sacked all our catering, security and cleaning staff who were employed and outsourced it. What it meant was that our leaders were paying the same amount for a poorer service and the sacked folks were re-employed without pensions, job security and at lower wages while the difference went to forming contract managers on both sides and profits for the businesses.

Then they downgraded certain jobs, so job centre and benefit counters were manned by clerical assistants and supervised by clerical officers - this worked OK for a while, as these good folks had experience and training so could do the work even though they lacked the educational qualifications all around, but as they retired there was nobody to help or pass on the skills and expertise they needed. Turnover became high - why would you learn if they career path was just one job for a whole centre.
The last govt then compounded the problem by centralising and trying to multiskill, to the point where there was no deep expertise in what are very complex cases. Then they outsourced - PIP went to Capita who got paid for every application, every review and every appeal, which made it profitable to refuse applications.

For every service that is no longer part of government there has to be a overhead of a service monitoring organisation, and a government accountability department within the separated/sold off service. For sold services, there has to also be a profit raised, and people providing performance figures, and a govt department using these figures to report to govt. Lots of jobs not actually DOING the work.

Sewage is not just a coastal issue though. I live 60 miles from the nearest coast, at the top of a "run" of pipes, but in building additional estate running in to this, it backed up 10 homes to fill my drains regularly until, because I had drainage cover, they got fed up coming out and did something about it. There are drainage plans on new developments, but there are not enough folks to ensure they are actually put in, and they only cover the development itself, and not the effects on existing streets, lands.

In the late 80s, teacher went on a residential course at a College of Education in July - fabulous food they told me. I went on a residential course there 6 weeks later, the following September. The food was either awful or inedible. The catering was now privatised, and a profit had to be made.

To me that is what privatisation is all about. As FranP said "paying the same amount for a poorer service".

Sadly Maggie decided that she would "cut the civil service at a stroke". Two things I remember vividly - they sacked all our catering, security and cleaning staff who were employed and outsourced it. What it meant was that our leaders were paying the same amount for a poorer service and the sacked folks were re-employed without pensions, job security and at lower wages while the difference went to forming contract managers on both sides and profits for the businesses.

Then they downgraded certain jobs, so job centre and benefit counters were manned by clerical assistants and supervised by clerical officers - this worked OK for a while, as these good folks had experience and training so could do the work even though they lacked the educational qualifications all around, but as they retired there was nobody to help or pass on the skills and expertise they needed. Turnover became high - why would you learn if they career path was just one job for a whole centre.
The last govt then compounded the problem by centralising and trying to multiskill, to the point where there was no deep expertise in what are very complex cases. Then they outsourced - PIP went to Capita who got paid for every application, every review and every appeal, which made it profitable to refuse applications.

For every service that is no longer part of government there has to be a overhead of a service monitoring organisation, and a government accountability department within the separated/sold off service. For sold services, there has to also be a profit raised, and people providing performance figures, and a govt department using these figures to report to govt. Lots of jobs not actually DOING the work.

Sewage is not just a coastal issue though. I live 60 miles from the nearest coast, at the top of a "run" of pipes, but in building additional estate running in to this, it backed up 10 homes to fill my drains regularly until, because I had drainage cover, they got fed up coming out and did something about it. There are drainage plans on new developments, but there are not enough folks to ensure they are actually put in, and they only cover the development itself, and not the effects on existing streets, lands.

MartavTaurus

So this is us in Devon today.

The sun is shining,
I'm at the beach with my dog,
The fishing boat will be offloading his Friday catch for dinner
My DGC will come down after school,
And what do we have?

💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩

I always regretted not moving there after we retired.

Now I'm quite relieved we didn't.
Although our river here is polluted anyway.

💩💩💩🐓💩

So this is us in Devon today.



The sun is shining,
I'm at the beach with my dog,
The fishing boat will be offloading his Friday catch for dinner
My DGC will come down after school,
And what do we have?

💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩

I have every sympathy with the postmasters, treated appallingly initially and then treated worse with job losses, lost money, prison etc. Maybe 10,000 affected plus their families - 50,000

The water scandal affects 60m people! Water customers, families going to seaside (and the communities dependent on holidaymakers), swimmers, dog walkers, fisherman, those who sail. Even grannies spending time on river with DGC!

grannysyb

I don’t want these companies to be fined, I want them to be told that they must use the equivalent of their fine to be used to upgrade their systems. Make this mandatory.

But the irony is that the customers will be paying the fines in extra charges, the bosses still get their bonuses and the shareholders their dividends

Surfers against Sewage petition
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/end-the-profit-driven-sewage-pollution-scandal-1

Surfers against Sewage need another 8000 or so signatures. Please raise awareness of theit campaign.

I don’t want these companies to be fined, I want them to be told that they must use the equivalent of their fine to be used to upgrade their systems. Make this mandatory.

The frustrating thing is that on the rare occasions water companies are prosecuted they are fined but I doubt the money comes out of the executives' pockets or shareholders' profits ... it just dwindles the amount available to improve the system.

I’ve watched all 3 episodes- truly shocking - spread the word - everyone needs to be made aware of these corrupt water companies!

No matter what the cost the Government must nationalise the water industry. I think it's the only answer to this dreadful scandal and total disregard by the water companies of our once beautiful waterways and beaches.

The Environment Agency is completely useless.They are complicit in this appalling scandal.People have died.When
will the powers that be listen and do something about it.It will
be just like the Post Office scandal all over again.

I've just binge-watched it. If you haven't seen it, please do watch it.

We (I think that's England & Wales only) are the only country in the world with privatised water. Who'd have thought being the only country to do something was a bad idea?

Approx £80bn profit to shareholders, over £60bn of debt (30p in £ of your and my water bill apparently being shelled out in interest on that debt)

(Scottish Water remains a publicly owned, statutory corporation accountable to the Scottish Government, not privatised like England's water system)

I’d happily pay another penny in the pound taxation instead of indirect tax. It’s so much more fair!

missdeke

I've seen the series and it is absolutely appalling the way the water companies have behaved. The government too have a lot more to answer for too. The deregulations put in place by David Cameron and the like have caused havoc to many aspects of our country. We have never been in such a state as we are now, roads, water, building to name a few have been destroyed in the name of making cash, renataionalisation would be unbelievably expensive but it's the only way we can ever be safe again.

I agree absolutely. Fine them out of existence and return it to public ownership. I’ve always believed that part of the problem is a Victorian system. According to the programme only 12% of the system is Victorian. (Just an aside - Naples is still using a Roman system and Brighton’s Victorian sewers seem in very good condition). There is absolutely no excuse for this state of affairs!
I shall be voting Green in the local elections.

I’ve just contributed on the other thread!

For potential Reform voters they want to scrap even more regulation...

Exactly, Chocolatelovinggran! The fines don't mean anything to them.

I would be more interested in fines if the executives were charged to pay them.
I would be happy to accept a payment schedule.
Any other fine us paid by us, the suckers they've abused.

A great series. Thatcher, Cameron, Truss, privatisation, deregulation, James Bevan ...! I agree Luckygirl3 and vegansrock - prison is too good for some of them. Clearly fines don't work.