The cost of privatisation.

It's a contract to run a franchise. And I wouldn't be too upset about Serco losing the ability to 'run' something.

It's still owned by TfL.
 
The best book on the privitisation of national assets to large corporations is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. It is a book that unravels one of the grand narratives of our time. It is a book that everyone needs to read.
 
Zbornak said:
If privatisation is so brilliant, why don't we privatise other things like the emergency services and the education department?
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Further Education is already run as a business. Each college only gets paid per student, and in installments based on attainment (and how well they did).

This means that education no longer serves local or national employment or skills needs as that is rarely economical for the college. What is economical is large class sizes, minimal outlay for materials and the cheapest teacher possible (non-teachers such as 'instructor demonstrators' can now take classes at a much lower pay rate).

This means that specialised courses that don't attract at least 12-15 students are completely cut, whilst Public Services, Sport, Hair & Beauty, various construction trades and Health and Social care courses have multiple classes. We don't need thousands and thousands of mobile hair dressers or Sport graduates, but we'll get them because education is now 'consumer' led.

If a course on chewing gum could get accredited by an exam board and 50 students signed up, that course would run and the college would love it as a nice little earner.

It also means that colleges are increasingly depressing places to work as students can behave however they like and the college cannot kick them out because each student represents a sum of money that it cannot afford to lose. Students know this and they see themselves as untouchable.

Education in the UK is a joke, where it is now merely about clawing down the funding, any sense of learning takes a firm second place.
 
Moses said:
Because it's a fact that some elements of the state are being run as efficiently as anyone could manage... some are being running reasonably, but not in a stellar way... then some are bring run inefficiently. You wouldn't want to privatise the first class, and the middle class would have to be considered properly, but the last class could be privatised with it being beneficial for the state, and thus us, no?
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It depends on what elements you deem rate from efficient to inefficient. And by efficiency, I assume you mean value for money and not quality of service?
 
Running healthcare as a business just seems wrong to me. Sure, efficiency is important, but more often than not the private contractor takes the profit, whilst the NHS spends extra on administration sorting out the various bidders and contractors they are now forced to work with. Not to mention that private firms can choose the profitable areas to work in, leaving the NHS to pick up all the ****.
 
Whilst it would be utopian to think of transport, energy, water, etc all run by Gov for the people, it's just simply unrealistic.

As for NHS and the recent Royal Mail sell off, we all know whit ****-bags pharma companies are, they already have claws in the NHS but to let them get their teeth into it would be a real shame. The RM sell off was sensible in my opinion, it was uncompetitive, and still is to a degree. it needs a massive injection of cash to modernise and keep up with rivals, I have second hand knowledge of the goings on in Post Offices and RM warehouses and it's remarkable that anything is delivered. I don't think the Gov got ripped off, in the same way that I don't think Facebook is 'worth' the billions claimed. The stock market just got a raging boner about RM and it looked bad on the Gov, when actually I think, considering the investment needed to stay competitive, they did the right thing.
 
RM would be very competitive if they weren't the only company that has to adhere to the Universal Service Obligation and the regulator (OFCOM) thinks it's not a problem.
 
Zbornak said:
If privatisation is so brilliant, why don't we privatise other things like the emergency services and the education department?
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This is work in progress - private ambulances are a fast growing marketplace as the NHS ones are deprived of funds. Education is also being privatised with the growth of free schools and academies. Privatisation however isn't brilliant for everyone such as the end users of these services, or the people who actually provide the service. It is however brilliant for the executives and shareholders of the companies that get the contracts to provide these services.
 
To me it seems like we have sold off the 'crown jewel' when we privatised everything for a pittance back in the 80's and 90's. Govts are so short sighted, let professional business people people run institution in house.

I think we can all agree that Energy and Utility privitisation has not benfitted the consumer, neither has the rail fiasco. We needed a happy balance between the bad old days in the 70's and 80' and what we have today. Basically we as a people have been screwed, whilst politicians and shareholder have stuck 2 fingers up at us.
 
I think what a lot of you are describing as "Privatisation" is actually inherently Cronyism, I believe that if these services were truly turned over to the market we would all benefit, but instead they're sold to politicians friends/corporations and ultimately we all suffer. The socialists are naturally going to blame private industry/"free market" when it was never really involved in the transaction in the first place.
 
bloodiedathame said:
Whilst it would be utopian to think of transport, energy, water, etc all run by Gov for the people, it's just simply unrealistic.
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Not unrealistic at all, Scottish Water remains in public ownership as a statutory corporation 100% owned by the Scottish Government.

From 2010 - 2015 it has been delivering one of the largest investment programmes in the UK water sector (£2.5bn). Customer satisfaction is year-on-year increasing and SW frequently outperform on their regulatory requirements. The average water/wastewater bill in Scotland is lower than the England & Welsh average:

"The charge for the average household bill in Scotland (around £334) is expected to stay lower than the average bill in England and Wales. Last year Scottish Water customers paid less than customers of all of the private water companies in England and Wales. This will mean that the average household will still pay less than £1 a day for the water services you receive."

It makes an average surplus before tax of about £70m per year, all of which is plowed straight back into the capital investment programme rather than lining private shareholders bank balances.

Very unrealistic I must agree :rolleyes:
 
My company (National Air Traffic Services) was part privatised over a decade ago. I have totally noticed the shift in priorities from safety to cost-cutting and profit generation. It's only a matter of time before this comes back to bite them imho.
 
ci_newman said:
How do you figure that if they were Government run that they would be better invested in? The government is making massive cuts in almost all sectors at the moment, why would these particular establishments be immune from that?
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Government run & owned, the services would still be self-funded, although subsiding fibre optic cabling would an excellent use of taxpayers money instead of the funding the gravy train for MEP's, MP's & lords while cutting everything else.

Imagine if nuclear power was entirely privatised and self-regulated. It would potentially be disastrous as no private corporation will pay for the enormous costs of handling nuclear waste.
 
East coast mainline under government control was the most profitable line in the uk, highest customer satisfaction and one of the top punctuality scores in the business, and enjoyed renovation since it was taken out of failing private hands.Now a combination of the two worst private companies have taken it over. Watch it tumble :(

Imagine if nuclear power was entirely privatised and self-regulated. It would potentially be disastrous as no private corporation will pay for the enormous costs of handling nuclear waste.
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Or say... Not invest in new power plants since privatisation and then demand the upfront costs largely be covered by the public and then secure a outrageous minimum secured price that fleeces the taxpayer a second time, so they could be paying for the electricity generated twice.
And only bothered to do that when begged by the government because the infrastructure is failing.
 
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