My experiences of outsourcing public sector services have not been positive. To take up the Railtrack example. I live next to a railway line. The tracks were tested regularly at night when it was British Rail. During the period that it was a private company, there was no testing at all and, of course, we had elsewhere a crash caused by lack of maintenance. When Network Rail came into being, the first thing I noticed was track testing came back.
In education, the cleaning service were contracted out in my school. We had to take the lowest tender which was a company with no educational experience and thought schools were empty after 3.30 pm. They came back demanding more money! The catering service was also contracted out and the profit was made by selling pizza and chips. The company complained when we took pizza and chips off the menu one day a week, not because they were losing money but because their profit was reduced.
I am ideologically opposed to privatising public services, but my experience also tells me that we are in grave danger of losing the service element of "public service". It doesn't exist, again in my experience, in the private sector. |