At this years annual conference the Public & Commercial Services Union (PCS) launched a booklet that provides information on the threats and consequences of privatising public services. The document builds on a series of forums that took place during 2009/10.
These forums examined and exposed many past failures of the privatisation of public services and made [...]
Archive for the tag 'Public Services'
Filed under This & That
PCS on Privatisation
10 Comments CherryPie on Sep 2nd 2010
The Government has recently ended its £750m border security contract with a Raytheon-led consortium and said it had no confidence in the U.S. company.
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£755m UK border contract scrapped
By Lorraine Turner
Friday, 23 July 2010
The Government ended its £750m border security contract with a consortium led by Raytheon yesterday, saying it had no confidence in the [...]
6 Comments CherryPie on Jul 26th 2010
Filed under Anecdotes
One More Meeting
I had yet another meeting today which I won’t dwell on too much except to say it was in my lunch hour, it was about the proposed public sector cuts and the person who had asked me for a lift to the meeting was trying to dictate to me what time I would leave to [...]
Comments Off CherryPie on Jun 22nd 2010
Myth 6 “Back-office” functions can be outsourced without impacting on front-line services
REALITY Support functions are just as important as the front-line
In a recent document called “Doing More with Less” the CBI claims that ’sharing back office functions can improve efficiency” and that ‘non-core activities are best provided by the private and third sectors unless [...]
2 Comments CherryPie on Apr 14th 2010
Myth 5 The public sector has a worse productivity record than the private sector
REALITY Public services create public value
The CBI uses government statistics to show that public sector productivity has declined by an average of 0.3% over the period 1997-2007 and that over the same period, labour productivity in the private sector increased by [...]
4 Comments CherryPie on Apr 13th 2010
MYTH 4 The private sector is more responsive to service users’ individual needs
REALITY Only the public sector can respond to society’s collective needs
Public sector reforms are often based on the idea that public service users should be treated as consumers. In many cases, this focus is both appropriate and necessary. For instance, the [...]
4 Comments CherryPie on Apr 12th 2010
MYTH 3 Competition is the best way to improve public services
REALITY Public Services are too important to compete on price
The imposition of competition and markets in the public sector means driving a wedge between client and contractor roles and usually results in the restriction of in-house delivery. Local authorities, NHS Trusts and other public [...]
4 Comments CherryPie on Apr 10th 2010
