Thing is – privatisations/nationalisation is all a bit simplistic.

It is simplistic because there is often a good mix of both that works well. Be it PFI, housing associations or rubbish collection – there are lots of good and bad examples of poor private practice and poor public practice – but also of good public practice and good private practice.

What needs to happen, and what our centralised state is very bad at, is allow decisions to be made locally. If Sheffield feels that a 25 year PFI contract will significantlly enhance its road network, and sets about hiring experts on how to run and tender such contracts – and signs what seems to be a pretty well structured deal for £2billion that ensures five years of high investment to raise standards dramatically, and 20 years of ongoing maintenance of that high standard – it should be allowed to. Banning it from doing so, just like banning councils from using housing associations or alternatively forcing them to use housing associations, destroys this country.

It destroys this country because – fundementally – doing so undermines the point of having choices available. In places where a method works, whatever method that is, it is wrong to force some other method. In other places where that method hasn’t worked, it is wrong to force its continuation.

If government could just allow local decision-making – perhaps facilitated by collective group of local authorities who maintain a staff of experts on procurement and running of services – then we’d probably see less private provision of services, but better private provision where it is used.

Of course the NHS is different as it is a national body – and private provision there needs a major recalibration of how the NHS works if privatisation isn’t to cost us squllions in waste. Sadly we are not doing the recalibration. We are just walking ceaselessly and blindly into private provision.

All depends if management consultancy induced madness ends. McKinsey have so much to answer for, and Labour are equally guilty of rushing to privatise everything: including the NHS. If they agree, and stop the outsourcing/privatisation they perpetuated, then all will be well. Otherwise…

There’s certainly no shortage of ads out there for renationalisation: G4S, ALS, FGW, A4E….

The problem with outsourcing is that stupid manager/decision makers turn to it for the wrong reasons, and without thinking through the structure of their relationship to the outsourcing company.

Firstly, any rhetorical notion of public bad/private good is utter toss because this applies to both the private and public sectors.

Secondly, any rhetorical call for more competition is only valid where competition is actually achieved (and is achievable) and also that competition is desirable.

Thirdly, knowledge of the overall system has to be retained (to avoid knowledge dependence) and your corporate ethos has to be projected into the outsourcers (to avoid quality issues, etc.).

Most of this is forgotten by both private and public sectors.

It’s worth remembering that one of the most important roles of outsourcing companies dealing with state contracts is to take the blame for government policy.

To be clear, this is said not to excuse the companies, but to emphasise the fact that they are acting on orders. As for war criminals, both the companies and the government that has given the orders bear full responsibility for their actions.

ATOS treats incapacity benefit claimants shamefully because it has signed a contract with the government that rewards it for treating incapacity benefits shamefully. It gets paid when claims are denied, and it does not get financially penalised for denying claims wrongly.

If a government with humane rather than basically evil intent had negotiated the contract, then ATOS would be paid on the basis of claims handled (with no weight attached to whether they were accepted or rejected), and would face large penalties for claims that were decided incorrectly. Instead, the government chose to screw the sick.

Similarly, FGW charges enormous fares because it signed a contract with the government under which it would charge enormous fares and pay the government an enormous premium. If the government wished to follow the example of mainland European governments, and reduce fares while not demanding enormous premium payments from rail operators, then it could have negotiated the contract in that way. Instead, the government chose to screw commuters.

Discussing this issue on Twitter, I used the term ‘scapegoat’ to refer to the service that the government is buying from ATOS and FGW – of having arm’s length anger directed at a private company despite the fact that the outcome of the private contract is *exactly what the government intended*. But scapegoat isn’t right because scapegoats are innocent. Suggestions for a better term are most welcome.

(and yes, I know that the ATOS and FGW contracts were both negotiated by Labour. Blame is definitely a two way street in this area.)

Based on this OP, the answer to the question “Could the tide be turning against privatisation of services?” must be No.

The OP doesn’t understand the meaning of outsourcing, privatisation or contracting, so the post is consequently nonsense.

Let’s look at the first paragraph: “The G4S Olympic security shambles is such a spectacular outsourcing disaster that it is leading to a period of soul searching in political and media circles about the nature of privatisation.”

Olympics security cannot have been “outsourced” to G4S because there was never any intention to provide all security in-house. The failure is one of contracting: LOCOG made a decision, somewhat bizarre, to employ stewards from a single contractor. LOCOG does not have a continuing need for thousands of stewards so it sought temps. Whilst G4S are primarily responsible for the failure of this contract, LOCOG must be questioned about its design.

The first paragraph ends with the word “privatisation”. Privatisation is the process of converting a state owned service or business to a privately owned one. Privatisation is about ownership. The opposite of privatisation is nationalisation.

LOCOG is a quango. It exists to perform temporary functions — to run the Olympics, to transfer the venues to new owners and to spend government money. LOCOG is an organising body that shortly will disappear. It cannot be nationalised or privatised because its functions are ephemeral.

@John B

regarding your assertion that ATOS et al are scapegoated for government policy. Up to a point I agree, but who DECIDES govt policy?

Voters?, naaw, especially when said voters get their info from News International and Associated News. Both peddle convenient lies to voters.

A corporation like ATOS? naaw, like you stated, they run according to a contract. In theory, breach of contract would rescind more business.

The Government? not sure on that. Are we in a democratic country, where we vote for them?

Who DECIDES policy then – aah yes, i forgot to mention the super rich and their lobbyists!!

One out-sourcing contract goes wrong…and LC is featuring diatribes against out-sourcing and privatisation (which are quite distinct, btw).

Can I remind people here that governments (regardless of political control) cock many things up, and rarely on a small scale? (NHS and IT anybody?) And the civil service never loses its ‘contract’ with the taxpayer, despite its often-proved incompetence.

Health care and education cost billions and yet are (with pockets of excellence) poor for a developed nation. Many go through a decade and more of expensive state “education” and leave without being even able to read or write. The NHS, though good in parts, is an expensive, producer-controlled mess that leaves old people to starve to death.

The state takes half the national income; and then our elected representatives bribe us with our own money, taking out loans – so big that our grandchildren’s children will still be paying them back. – to fund a level of state provision the tax-base cannot afford or won’t accept electorally…

Compared to this, the private sector is a paragon of virtue and efficiency.

I thought the NHS IT fiasco was a PFI scam (sorry, scheme) The private sector a paragon of virtue and competence too? wow, that is an interesting premise. Is it accurate to the real world in any way?

Dissident @ 9:

“The private sector a paragon of virtue and competence too? wow, that is an interesting premise. Is it accurate to the real world in any way?”

I never claimed the private sector was a paragon of virtue and competence. Can you not understand the import of my qualifier, and are you one of those products of state “education” (to which I refer above) who are unable to read?

“I thought the NHS IT fiasco was a PFI scam”. Not all NHS IT fiascos are PFI scams. And PFI’s are a government (not a private sector) scam – governments use them them for off-balance-sheet borrowing and then incompetent civil servants write duff specifications allowing the contractors to do well. You can’t blame the private sector for looking a gift-horse in the mouth…

Tone
I did understand the qualifyer, I saw humour in it, which is why I egged it on. The private sector actually has equal potential to be incompetent and inneficient. I should know, as I see the results in every private company I have worked in…