The Public Sector Show – a Dutch Auction of Public Services

The public services industrial complex was represented in force at today's 2014 Public Sector Show - a trade fair sponsored by US military contractor, Lockheed Martin. Tory ministers and senior civil servants hawked public sector contracts to over 2,500 visitors in a show featuring more than 70 speakers in a seminar programme across seven theatres and over 100 exhibitors. Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude gave the closing keynote speech ‘Open for Business – Next Steps in Shaping a Public Sector Fit for the Future’ including 'how government is opening up to SMEs and understanding what smaller, more innovative firms can offer' and 'the opportunities presented by innovative service models such as Public Sector Mutuals':
http://www.publicsectorshow.co.uk/

Go forth and monopolise

A new report from the National Audit Office (NAO) confirms that in 2012/13 private companies secured £187bn of public spending in the UK including over 25% of central government spending. The NAO sounds an alarm about 'quasi monopolies that have sprung up in some parts of the public sector' as the domination of public sector procurement by companies such as Atos, Serco, Capita and G4S generates super profits. As the General Election approaches it's an alarm that Labour needs to hear loud and clear:
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/memorandum-role-major-contractors-delivery-public-services/

Off with her head

Even Thatcher refused to sell off the Queens head but no such monarchic reverence was shown by Cameron. The very British disease of privatisation left the Royal Mail headless and up to £6 billion lost to the public purse in the disastrous sell off. In this excellent analysis on the Open Democracy website the international failure of privatisation is laid open but shows that only in Britain are politicians, the public, and the trade unions, inept in challenging the privatisation machinery that supports the asset stripping of the public sector and lines the pockets of the elite.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/joe-guinan-thomas-m-hanna/privatisation-very-british-disease
Anna Rose

Time to loosen the grip of corporate sharks on public services

UNISON has issued a timely repeat of the union's longstanding call for an inquiry into privatisation in the wake of last week's revelations that private companies providing public services are routinely “gaming the system” to make money for their shareholders at the expense of the taxpayer. However the resilience and staying power of the £100bn per year and fast expanding public services industrial complex should not be underestimated.
   DeAnne Julius, writing in the Financial Times, was quick off the mark to defend the ‘outsourcing industry’ in the wake of the latest privatisation scandal.

The revolving door betwen Whitehall and Big Business

The Observer reports on leaked documents which reveal how private health firms worked with Downing Street to ensure the Health and Social Care Act went ahead. This is the latest example of how the public services industrial complex has a firm grip on elected policy makers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/25/sham-listening-exercise-nhs-reform?CMP=twt_gu

Pay the Piper, Call the Tune

A report in the Health Investor magazine is a text book example of the Public Services Industrial Complex at work. A new research study ‘Partnerships for healthy outcomes’ finds that NHS commissioning is 'not fit for purpose' and that 'too few services are delivered by private companies or voluntary sector organisations'. Given that the report was funded by SERCO the outcome is not surprising. What is appalling however is that the panel endorsing the report included not only private sector vested interests but senior NHS managers and the Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation - a body which purports to 'speak for the whole of the NHS':
http://www.healthinvestor.co.uk/ShowArticleNews.aspx?ID=2531

CBI lobbies for the Public Services Industrial Complex

The latest report commissioned by the CBI, to justify the £20m annual subscriptions paid by its private company members, predictably claims that ‘opening up more public services to alternative providers could save over £22bn in the next five years.’ UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis responded by saying: "The CBI has plucked this figure from the air. All the evidence shows that privatisation is a costly failure that the taxpayer can ill afford. Only last week MPs felt it necessary to call for a blacklist of firms that have failed to deliver on their contracts. Privatisation failures carry heavy human costs: ask an elderly resident of an ex-Southern Cross home. And, as the Olympic fiasco clearly shows, when the private sector fails, the public sector has to pick up the pieces"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/union-fury-at-cbi-outsourcing-call-8166767.html

Spotlight on the Public Services Industrial Complex

Channel 4 News is running a very useful series of reports exposing the big players in privatisation and highlighting a lack of public accountability in procurement processes. http://www.channel4.com/news/do-you-know-who-runs-your-world

Circle vultures ready to swoop on NHS hospitals - time to raise the alarm

The Sunday Telegraph reports that private health company Circle Holdings is looking to extend into the NHS well beyond its small bridgehead at Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire. "On a 10 to 20-year view, I think the scale of private companies running NHS health care in Britain could be huge" said Chief Executive Ali Parsa, in self-fulfilling prophecy mode: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/pharmaceuticalsandchemicals/9450088/Ali-Parsa-Government-should-not-be-running-hospitals.html

Police targeted by Public Services Industrial Complex

An alarming report in the Guardian exposes a plan by two of the UK's largest police forces to massively escalate privatisation whereby private companies could 'take responsibility for investigating crimes, patrolling neighbourhoods and even detaining suspects.' http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/02/police-privatisation-security-firms-crime?mobile-redirect=false

Hands Off TUPE

The TUC has echoed UNISON's recent warning that weakening the Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employment (TUPE) regulations will drive down pay, increase unemployment and lead to an increased involvement of the private sector in public services, with contractors competing for business on lower wages rather than on the quality of the service they provide. The Public Services Industrial Complex is lobbying Coalition Ministers to reverse measures introduced by the previous Government to remove any ambiguity that TUPE applies where 'service provision changes': http://www.tuc.org.uk/equality/tuc-20619-f0.cfm

Outsourcing in the era of austerity - diminishing returns?

The FT today carries an interesting report on ‘growing scepticism’ in central and local government over the potential savings to be achieved by outsourcing of services, despite the worst efforts of the public sector industrial complex. David Hall, director of the Public Services International Research Unit at Greenwich University, says: “What is interesting is that despite the biggest austerity package in postwar history the outsourcing route has not been seen as a way of delivering significant cost savings. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b01353c2-27d0-11e1-9433-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1kOo6dZTF

Privateers back all-party group, so where's the real scrutiny of outsourcing?

Last week saw the launch of a new All Party Parliamentary Group on Outsourcing and Shared Services, chaired by Conservative MP Bob Blackman along with Labour vice-chairs Siobhain McDonagh and Tom Blenkinsop. "As more organisations look to benefit from outsourcing and sharing services, it is vital to learn from past experiences: what had worked and what has not", said Blackman. "We are keen to learn from those experienced in outsourcing, on all sides of the relationship - buyers, suppliers and officials."

Public Services Industry Firms are among the most unethical in the UK

Groundbreaking research by the Ethical Consumer website has discovered that the top 20 private companies delivering public services in the UK have the 'bottom rating for many of our ethical and environmental criteria, including environmental reporting, supply chain management, human and workers’ rights and political activity.' http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/
CommentAnalysis/Features/Isthatwhatyoucallgoodservice.aspx

UNISON Report on the Public Service Industrial Complex - updated version essential reading

The groundbreaking UNISON report on The Rise of the "Public Services Industry", written by Paul Gosling, has just been updated. This essential resource now deals with Con Dem Government policy, the planned intensification of privatisation in services such as the NHS and, topically, the crisis in adult social care: Download the report here and see report on InsideHousing  http://tinyurl.com/3vgwt87

Southern Cross..WE TOLD YOU SO

The Southern Cross debacle was not one that was unpredictable. In fact it was UNISON that told us all so.

New evidence of large profits from PPPs

A report today exposes the level of profiteering from PPP deals, with an increased use of tax havens for insfrastrucure funds. The European Services Strategy Unit reveals a £10bn sale of shares in Public Private Partnership companies. “The level of profiteering from PPP equity transactions makes a nonsense of the original value for money assessments... PPP projects are little more than money-making mechanisms for builders and banks”, said report author Dexter Whitfield.

Compass Declares Recession a 'Fantastic Opportunity'‏

Richard Cousins the Chief Executive of Compass (annual salary £3.4 million) was interviewed in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/supportservices/8147875/Compass-chief-executive-Richard-Cousins-points-to-growth-and-acquisitions.html Describing the new age of austerity as a ‘fantastic opportunity’ he goes on to claim that ‘costs need to be taken out of systems and that’s what we do.’

Public policy in grip of corporate interests‏

In today’s Guardian Seumas Milne provides a timely expose of the growing influence of private sector vested interests on Government policy in Britain. What has emerged in the past 30 years is a public services industrial complex wholly analogous with the military industrial complex. In the same way the latter has fuelled the arms race and wars, the private sector lobby is driving the privatisation and ‘small state’ agenda:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/17/corporate-grip-public-private-sector

Tory Retail Gurus do not know the value of public services‏

Last year plain Simon Wolfson addressed Tory Councillors at the Conservative Councillors Conference and with pseudo guru status was applauded for his analysis of how efficiencies could be delivered in the public sector. Sounding very familiar with Philip Green both men seem to think that their capacity to sell cheap clothes, often made in poorer countries with poor working conditions, somehow gives them inter-galactic powers to understand and ‘fix’ UK public services.