Governments don’t make jobs, successful businesses do. Mrs T privatised loss making industries in order that they could be run on market principles. This saved the taxpayer from subsidising inefficient industries such as British Leyland and leaving more money in their pocket to buy the goods and services they want and thus promoting jobs growth in the private sector. Privatising the utilities brought competition and accountability and brought down energy prices. Being able to buy your own council house boosted an individual’s independence from the state and gave them a stake in looking after their asset. Instead of waiting for the council to come and install new heating, double glazing, loft insulation etc the new home owners were free to do it themselves and boosting the economy in the process. She also enabled us to save for our own pension, ridding us of the need to rely on dodgy pension’s funds (whether Ponzi type civil service pensions or company raided Maxwell style pensions). The Tory privatisation policy worked – that’s why they won 3 terms.

 

The bottom line is Paul has a dogmatic view that the state should be the only organisation with a monopoly on public services. Most people couldn’t give two hoots who provides the service so long as they get a decent service. A public service means it is paid for by the state – it doesn’t mean that it has to be provided by the state. Do we have a National Road Building Service? No we commission it out to private firms – if they don’t deliver then we commission it to a competitor.

We pay into a National Insurance scheme so that we don’t have to worry about paying for our healthcare at the point of delivery – it doesn’t mean that the state has to run (and own) all the hospitals and GP practices, just pay for the services provided. The same should apply to education and schools. The state pays for you to be educated but it doesn’t have to be the provider of the school.

The reason usually cited for having a state monopoly service is that the private sector will put profit before people. Businesses have to make a profit but they cannot do so without satisfied customers. Also there are many other types of organisations that can provide public services such as local co-operatives or friendly and mutual societies which put service delivery first but have to work within a price based framework

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Pricing and competition drives innovation and eventually cuts costs – that is why we should not have monopolistic public services.

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The Tory privatisation policy worked???? You must be on strong drugs or a banker. BritishGas is about to hammer consumers with an 18% price increase, to add to the 24% increase in profit it made last year. The privatised rail network now has more subsidies than British Rail, despite above inflation fare increases every year (The public rail network in Northern Ireland has frozen fares, and increased passenger numbers) Privatised Railtrack gave profits to shareholders at the cost of increased rail deaths. There are now nearly 5 MILLION people on a council house waiting list, some of whom are having to be put up in hotels and B&B's. How did Thatcherism work for them?

As for roadbuilding! Did you know that the private companies that widened the M1 tendered at £3.7 Billion, but the final bill was over £5.1 Billion, or more than £43 million for every mile widened. The idea that privatisation has cut costs is deluded. It's worked very well for a few millionaires, to the detriment of the majority.

I don't blame companies for maximising profits. That's their sole reason to exist. I blame the selfish individuals who go into local politics with the aim of diverting tax-payers money into the pockets of the wealthy few, rather than working for the benefit of local residents.

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Couldn't agree more and I shall retweet this...locally we're already feeling the pain of the so-called Big Society with the burden on volunteers to run what should be public services.

Am extremely concerned about the effects of the privatisation of meals on wheels; what good are frozen meals to someone without a freezer and gone will be the friendly daily visit/check from the delivery driver :(

The 'sharing' of front line services with the other Tory led council, East Riding is another. Pre-election local tories were banging on about sharing services with North East Lincs, but now suddenly we're supposed to have more in common with East Riding? I don't think so.....it's also worth noting that allegedly, officers knew nothing about these plans.

Local services should be run and provided locally so that decisions can be made on what our taxes should be spent on.We should be in a position to choose to subsidise those less well off if we are in a position to do so. That is what local authorities are all about. Private industry will never provide that option.

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I find it hard to believe that Dave really believes the Tory administration plans to “divert tax-payers money into the pockets of the wealthy few”. The idea behind privatizing services is to decrease the cost to the taxpayer while maintaining the quality of service. If contractors go over budget as in his road building example then there should be penalty clauses for the contractor. Andrea raises a good point about meals-on-wheels providing a valuable daily check on the elderly but that isn’t what the service is for. It also illustrates the fact that society out sources its care for the elderly to social services rather than people being neighbourly and keeping an eye on one another. State provision decreases self reliance and community action.
I agree with Andrea that services should stay local but only from an ecological point of view. The services should be provided by charities, co-operatives, friendly and mutual societies – anything but the dead hand of the state.

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Good to see a wide range of opinions and comments on here, I'm really pleased this has provoked so many different views.

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Yes 'Black Flag', I believe it because I have had experience first-hand. I work for the council, but my job is unlikely to be privatised, so I'm not motivated by self-interest. Our cleaners were council employees, and they did a pretty good job. Then the decision was taken to invite private tenders. A private company produced a lower bid and got the contract. Our cleaners were laid off. The council cleaning service had no profit margin, so in order to make a profit the new company had to cut costs. It did this by paying the minimum possible, and employing fewer staff to do the same job.  The result?

The quality of employee plummeted. People failed to turn up to work, could not understand the cleaning routines and couldn't cope with the increased workload. Some lasted barely a week. For several days there was no cleaning at all, and colleagues had to go in to work early and do remedial work themselves as a health and safety issue. Occasionally a supervisor would turn up, but there was little they could do, and they had so many other sites to cover that the situation just got worse. Eventually the contract was taken in-house again, with an overnight improvement in quality. The only people to do well out of the experience were the company owners, who for several months took taxpayer's money and gave a crap service.

Privatisation failed the railways, which is why Railtrack had to be taken back under govt control, and why fares and subsidies have both increased. Penalty clauses would be a good idea, but most private companies would not sign a contract if they thought there was a chance they could make a loss.

Yes, society relies on the state to look after its elderly. How many elderly neighbours do you provide food for? Self-reliance and community action are all well and good, and in Victorian times that's pretty much all there was. But by the same token, in Victorian times many elderly people had to resort to begging and died in the streets. Not a model I would choose.

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"Local services should be run and provided locally"

If this is the case Andrea, and you will get no argument from me on the matter, what is wrong with a small to medium enterprise/business providing the service?

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Because Neil, "small to medium enterprise/businesses" have to be able to make a profit, council run services do not, and indeed councils can choose to subsidise such services to benefit those most at need. A fundamental difference in private and public sector providers.

I am of course referring to the Community Meals Service and I gave an example of the East Riding who tried this previously, delivering a weeks' supply of frozen meals. Useless for anyone who doesn't have a freezer. This also removed the daily visit, however brief to our elderly; some of whom get no other visitors. This may well be a social aspect, but of equal importance in my humble opinion.

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