Why do we oppose privatisation?  Because we do not trust big business directors to have our interests, the interests of the public, at heart.  Naturally, their interests are to make profit for themselves and their shareholders.

The following stories demonstrate how making profit as a priority does not go hand in hand with serving the public’s best interests — or for that matter, our economy.  Furthermore, many of these stories demonstrate how big companies often fail on both fronts, making profit and providing the services they were contracted to provide; how they don’t keep their promises; and, in many cases, simply cannot deliver.  Remember the G4S fiasco of the Olympic games?

How private care firms have got away with breaking the law on pay

Guardian online, 13/6/2013

Samantha Nelson doesn’t dawdle. She’s up at 5.30 every morning and quickly in her car for the seven-mile journey that takes her to a gruelling day of work that often ends at around 11pm.

A carer who has washed and fed elderly people in her town for the past 14 years with the same privately owned company, Nelson has been rewarded with a precarious existence: a zero-hours contract that pays below the minimum wage.  More…

Somerset Council braces for lawsuit from Southwest One shared service venture

Computer Weekly, 31/8/2012

Somerset County Council is making preparations for legal action from Southwest One, the shared services joint venture it formed with IBM in 2007.

The stand-off is the culmination of 18 months of crisis talks over the joint venture’s failure to deliver procurement savings IBM promised at its outset, and a financial crisis that saw Southwest One deliver a fourth consecutive loss in its 2011 annual accounts this week.  More…

100 PLUS reasons why One Barnet is high risk and bad for residents and services

Barnet UNISON, 28/8/2012

The One Barnet Programme is just one in a series of mad cap ideas which seeks to hand over public services to the private sector. The One Barnet Programme has been through a number of iterations over the last four years firstly as Future Shape, then EasyCouncil and now One Barnet although that is changing to the Commissioning Council later this year.

Whatever the name another team of expensive consultants come up with it is sadly just the same tired old ideology ‘Private Good, Public Bad’.  More…