Privatisation

[John Marwood]

Prince Andrew is actually a G4S hologram

 

[Gramaisc]

Private Eye has been saying for some time now that aspects of the armed forces and police forces have been privatised by stealth

Indeed, they are, but ask a lot of privatisation supporters and they wouldn't agree with that - so best not to make it too obvious..?

And, of course, our 'privatised' nuclear power industry is building the next station with money from a communist country financing the building by a state enterprise owned by a country with a socialist government - and, if it all goes wrong, we'll just have to pick it up...

 

[John Marwood]

Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood

 

[henryscat]

Yes,
But the problem from the other side is that the public sector couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery.

So for example, Wolverhampton council recently lost a case in court. They didn't even use a barrister. They used their own in house lawer. They lost rightly, because they were wrong. It cost the company £20k to defend themselves from the council. The company wants to reclaim the costs from the council for defending themselves.

So now the council are using a barrister to put a limit on the claim the company can make. So its going to cost the council 20k, to stop them from paying 20k. Go figure.

Come to think of it, what public services do I actually use, that I would rather pay a private company to do?

It was the private sector that caused the collapse of the banks through greed and incompetence. It is the private sector that pollute our environment unnecessarily and waste resources because profits come first. It is the private sector that puts profits before safety- such as Railtrack whose substandard maintenance caused Hatfield accident and its subsequent collapse. So if you are talking piss ups and breweries - don't single out public sector alone.

 

[Mikinton]

It was the private sector that caused the collapse of the banks through greed and incompetence. It is the private sector that pollute our environment unnecessarily and waste resources because profits come first. It is the private sector that puts profits before safety- such as Railtrack whose substandard maintenance caused Hatfield accident and its subsequent collapse. So if you are talking piss ups and breweries - don't single out public sector alone.

I may comment on the Privatisation thing later, but regarding the collapse of the banks, it takes two to tango. I tend to think of it like McDonalds; selling products which are OK in moderation provided you're not overweight, but decidedly dangerous if you're already a chubster addicted to fast food. In general, what they're doing is fine, but a bit of regulation wouldn't go amiss. The difference in the analogy is that we're all affected by the banks going under; if McDonalds went under (because all the fatties died off or changed their diets), then no great loss.

 

[United57]

Sadly over the years we have had some poorly run public services hit badly with politics and general incompetence . Equally we have profit motivated privatised services for the public sector which are run at the minimum. If we had sorted out poorly run public services and turned them in to well run public services then we may be better off. An issue that may affect Stafford is that when you hive off services then you may find that, the only ones you can cutback on are the ones you have not hived off the result is the disproportionate reduction in services. The ones that are not hived off are the ones generally that need support and turning around.

The private sector do get other companies to run services for them the difference between them and Local Authority services managed by the a third party is that those contracts are managed. So if a support company does not deliver its out and often has to pay.

 

[Gramaisc]

Public services can be run competently - Stafford Crematorium is an example, where the consequences of incompetence would not be acceptable. Sometimes, though, this attitude is not prevalent. Some privatised monopolies can have a 'bugger you' attitude, as well, of course.

 

[John Marwood]

I may comment on the Privatisation thing later, but regarding the collapse of the banks, it takes two to tango. I tend to think of it like McDonalds; selling products which are OK in moderation provided you're not overweight, but decidedly dangerous if you're already a chubster addicted to fast food. In general, what they're doing is fine, but a bit of regulation wouldn't go amiss. The difference in the analogy is that we're all affected by the banks going under; if McDonalds went under (because all the fatties died off or changed their diets), then no great loss.

Drugs?

 

[John Marwood]

Private Hospitals fuckup too

 

[proactive]

Public services can be run competently - Stafford Crematorium is an example, where the consequences of incompetence would not be acceptable.

One would have thought that Stafford Hospital (or indeed many other hospitals) fell into the same category, but apparently not...

 

[John Marwood]

Got any Quo?

 

[John Marwood]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...home-fees-the-scandal-of-secret-mark-ups.html

 

[dylanf]

Someone mentioned the banks screwing things up. No one has mentioned how the public sector has screwed up our finances.

Watch this video,

Although its a bit of scare mongering, it actually makes a lot of sense and I agree with the logic. I like the bit that tells us when we ran a quater of the world, our public sector still only employed a couple of hundred thousand.

And as someone in the private sector, I would never employ someone from the public sector. Their work ethic is a bit on the shit side, and they expect too much in return for nothing. Apologies if their are public sector employees reading this, you may work hard, but from my experience and the amount of time they waste (which just racks up cost for the tax payer) that's just the way it seems.

 

[Mikinton]

Apologies if their are public sector employees reading this, you may work hard, but from my experience and the amount of time they waste (which just racks up cost for the tax payer) that's just the way it seems.

*there

The big difference between the public and private sector is that the former has got to be around tomorrow and has taxpayers and ratepayers (showing my age) to answer to. In the private sector firms can just go bust and start up again and no one's any the worse off except the employees and a few shareholders. So you'll excuse us if maybe the due diligence phase takes a bit longer than it does in the private sector, and if we're unable to bury our mistakes quite as successfully (though maybe not looking at the state of the high street).

 

[tek-monkey]

I work in the public sector, and can promise you 95% of people there are severely overworked and certainly underpaid. The other 5% are the ones everyone talks about, just like unethical businessmen, terrorist Muslims, immigrants 'stealing' jobs etc.

Out of interest, whilst you'll never employ a public sector worker will you be availing yourself of their services for childcare? I'm not sure I could put my child in the hands of someone I deem unemployable, not that I have one!

 

[dylanf]

Ha Ha, well put.

I unfortunately don't put my child in public childcare.

My words were probably strong. Out of interest, who runs your budget? The council or your organisation.

 

[Gramaisc]

There are good and bad in both sectors - the most useless and overpaid person that I know is very much in the private sector.

We live in a society that is happy to ladle money onto 'celebrities' and rely on food picked by foreigners paid bugger all and living in virtual labour camps. Etc.

Although I have, elsewhere threatened to hang a large proportion of Lincoln City Council* - you just have to take as you find.

* The cheque seems to have been cleared without bouncing. Seven months to repay money they've held for eighteen years.

 

[tek-monkey]

We run our own, based on whatever the Guv decide to hand us that year. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure we had a decent surplus before we built all the new facilities. So I guess we were running at a profit, albeit one that can only be used for the 'business' and not transferred to shareholders.

Interestingly the privatisation route currently in effect (the academies act 2010) allows schools to effectively opt out of teaching the national curriculum, getting OFSTED inspected and even hiring qualified teachers - should bring down costs nicely.

 

[Gramaisc]

Interestingly the privatisation route currently in effect (the academies act 2010) allows schools to effectively opt out of teaching the national curriculum, getting OFSTED inspected and even hiring qualified teachers - should bring down costs nicely.

They may try to 'bring down costs', but there can also be a tendency to increase payments to those with control of the money - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10609273 .

 

[tek-monkey]

Odd that....