Cycling UK Forum

axel_knutt wrote:Professor Mildred Warner at Cornell studied thousands of utilities all over the world, and found that whilst public and private each have their pros and cons, there was no systematic difference in their efficiency. People just choose to presume differences to suit their political views.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gk5k8

In relation to covid, it seems to me that the problems are two fold, and neither is about public vs private.

Firstly, there's croneyism, with a corrupt government dishing out contracts to their pals.

Secondly, there's incompetence. If you want any job done properly in a roaring hurry, you don't give it to someone with no prior experience. You wouldn't ask an oncologist at a hospital to design an MRI scanner if you wanted it in a hurry, so why give test & trace to someone who hasn't done it before when there an experienced public health system already in place. During the war, Mosquitoes were designed by De Havilland, who knew what they were doing, and then furniture companies built them under licence, and Packard built Merlin engines under licence, but we get Dyson to design ventilators with no previous experience instead of asking them to build existing designs.

Nail,head,on!

pliptrot wrote:We read much about the private sector. The water boards used to be (well) run by ordinary civil servants on ordinary salaries. The privatized water companies pay their CEOs (and no doubt the rest of the board) inflated salaries (The CEO of Severn Trent was paid 2.45 million quid last year) while they preside over staggering increases in debt and inadequate investment. This is repeated over and over in the private sector. What we read about the behaviour of private companies' conduct and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic is staggering. It is certain that the current front bench have taken to the language of the autocrat to demonise anyone who disagrees with them (viz Priti Patel's comments about "lefty" immigration lawyers). In the current environment much that is objective is beginning to appear left-wing. But those big companies taking an ever bigger slice of public life appear to be mendacious, corrupt and rewarded for failure. Does anyone else think like me?

Nail,head,on!

kwackers wrote:

pwa wrote:That is a fair point and one I did consider. I just groan inwardly when people talk about British Rail as some wonderful entity when I remember how bad it was to use trains in those days, the discontent with underfunding and very rude staff, and the dirty carriages. Public ownership is not an automatic way of improving things. It might be part of a package of changes that could improve things, but on its own it doesn't excite me.

I groan inwardly when folk talk as though things will jump back to a time 50 or 60 years ago if we allow public ownership.
The world isn't even remotely the same, I think the odds of suddenly regressing to the 60's and 70's are vanishingly small.

IMO there's a huge problem with private companies which isn't helped by how we allow them to run and it's simply that it's all about short term profit.
The benefits of a modern, sleek, efficient transport system go way beyond the amount of money you'll make in the next 12 months and impact society in ways that can't easily be valued in cash terms and even if they were then they'd offer no benefit to the companies in question so are ignored.

We get around this of course with subsidies and other incentives, but then that's were the corruption gets in.
Private companies compete against each other and there are huge advantages to being "friendly" with your political chums, throw in a lack of accountability and corruption isn't just likely it's almost mandated.

Nail,head,on!

How anyone thinks the utilities and public transport should be in private hands is beyond me!
This country presently is a shambles,we need ask ourselves why that is and what can be done about it,and we can't blame the trade unions this time!

simonineaston wrote:It doesn't help that there have been several well-publised contracts recently, involving millions & millions of pounds of our money ('our' as in tax payers) dished out to companies where:
* the individuals involved all appear to be chums
* there's been no tender process involved
* there's no protection against failure
Fans of private enterprise tend to big up the fast reaction and ability to innovate aspects of this type of company, but the consequences of this sort of "light touch" laissez-faire arrangement can be truly awful, as we have seen from the sort of behaviour that's being revealed by the Grenfell inquiry, and where to make matters worse, the few switched-on players who had the balls to make a noise before the tragedy, were villified by all and sundry.

Nail,head,on,again!

Jdsk wrote: .......The EU procurement rules helped enormously.

Jonathan

And Brexit was sold on a "bonfire of regulations" if recent PPE and C19 Testing contracts give to the old scool tie network is anything to go by the the bonfire is roaring away
Not to mention building contracts overruling local authorities going through to Tory donors,a bonfire of to building regulations!

Iirc there was a bit of a scandal last year over overpaid university bosses, public sector afterall. It's often the case whether public or private the top people get voted big payouts and salaries by people sitting on remuneration boards who then get big payouts in return from their remuneration boards. A senior university administration at the top level once said it was just as dodgy in universities as big private sector companies.

Truth is that people at the top can often just work elsewhere either as executives or non-execs. That's the same situation as public and private sector. So if you're not getting enough one place they could move on if they're any good.

As to whether they're any good is a moot point. Both public and private seem to have no issue with rewarding failure. However what counts as personal success isn't that clear to most I reckon. Seeing issues with water sector as a punter isn't seeing the real picture of the performance of those at the top.

As to public vs private all I can say is i am a child of the 70s and have seen the good but also the bad of public and private sector from 70s through to modern times. I cannot see how the simplistic view of making these parts of our economy public sector will solve any of the real issues present.

Btw I used to be into canoeing. As such I've paddled rivers from extremely rural to near urban. I've seen the rivers that ran different colours depending on what the local dye works were producing day by day. I've paddled rivers and seen the colour of boats bleached out of them. I've seen the wildlife come back to rivers indeed into urban rivers too. I've seen otters and even water voles on British waterways that once were polluted beyond life. That's the best legacy of private sector ownership of water utilities.

Would public ownership have made that impressive change over the same timescale we'll never know. The only thing we can say is that they never showed any sign of doing so. Public sector has always been a fund governments could raid for the funds to carry out their agendas i reckon.

If you accuse me of assuming that they wouldn't have made the changes then I'll accuse your of wearing rose tinted glasses over the idea of public ownership. I see public sector as having problems but I see the same with private sector. The real question is not which one if those we need but isn't there a better option.?????

Tangled Metal wrote:Btw I used to be into canoeing. As such I've paddled rivers from extremely rural to near urban. I've seen the rivers that ran different colours depending on what the local dye works were producing day by day. I've paddled rivers and seen the colour of boats bleached out of them. I've seen the wildlife come back to rivers indeed into urban rivers too. I've seen otters and even water voles on British waterways that once were polluted beyond life. That's the best legacy of private sector ownership of water utilities.

Would public ownership have made that impressive change over the same timescale we'll never know. The only thing we can say is that they never showed any sign of doing so. Public sector has always been a fund governments could raid for the funds to carry out their agendas i reckon.

If you accuse me of assuming that they wouldn't have made the changes then I'll accuse your of wearing rose tinted glasses over the idea of public ownership. I see public sector as having problems but I see the same with private sector. The real question is not which one if those we need but isn't there a better option.?????

So you're trying to imply that cleaning up the waterways was something the water companies did out of public duty and not because legislation (both ours and the EU) was forced upon them? (And fairly recently at that).

I doubt either private or public would have made that much difference in this case.
However I've seen enough private companies squeal when stuff has been forced upon them and more than a few that have used their political clout to get things changed in their favour.

Fundamentally there is no reason why public and private companies cannot be equally efficient. The devolved NHS in Scotland and Wales have resisted almost all attempts at 'backdoor' privatisation that have been embraced by the English NHS - anyone heard that the Welsh and Scottish NHS are failing because of this?

So why pay the extra to shareholders and senior executives to get the same result?

Privatising an essential utility like water, which is also a monopoly, is lunacy, as evidenced by the water companies covering all the requisite (Ofwat prescribed) investment using income from the water rates yet still taking out massive loans to pay fortunes to shareholders and executives. The interest on these loans being paid by - guess who? And then they bleat when Ofwat says the bills have to reduce

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... areholders

simonineaston wrote:Fans of private enterprise tend to big up the fast reaction and ability to innovate aspects of this type of company, but the consequences of this sort of "light touch" laissez-faire arrangement can be truly awful, as we have seen from the sort of behaviour that's being revealed by the Grenfell inquiry, and where to make matters worse, the few switched-on players who had the balls to make a noise before the tragedy, were villified by all and sundry.

Disasters or deaths have been adjudged to have been the fault of nationalised industries, including the NCB being responsible for Aberfan. British Rail was formed in 1948, if you look on Wikipedia the first year after that that a serious BR accident didn't happen was 1972. Grenfell is ongoing but serious faults have been found with the local council as well as contractors.

Of course accidents occured/occur in privatised industry too; but the idea that nationalisation will always prevent this is a nonsense. I'm sure this will lead to a cry about underfunding, but private industry doesn't have unlimited funding either.

Stradageek wrote:Fundamentally there is no reason why public and private companies cannot be equally efficient. The devolved NHS in Scotland and Wales have resisted almost all attempts at 'backdoor' privatisation that have been embraced by the English NHS - anyone heard that the Welsh and Scottish NHS are failing because of this?

Before Covid there were long and repeated criticisms about the quality and service of the Welsh NHS. It was a reason Labour MPs found it difficult to criticise the government's NHS policies when the performance of the NHS under Welsh Labour was comparably worse.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.waleso ... 518991.amp

but the idea that nationalisation will always prevent this is a nonsense.

...and I'm sure you'll acknowledge that that's not what I said. A reasonable conclusion is that folks left to their own devices, without clear guidelines and, where necessary, firm oversight, have a tendancy to cut corners, regardless of which way they vote, especially when driven by a lust for profit. At best, this might just make their working day a little slicker, at worst, schools disappear and tower blocks incinerate. Much pee has been taken from agencies like the H&SE - whole comedy routines have turned to them for inspiration... but without them, chaos reigns and accident rates increase. And worst of all, chief executives walk away, smirking, trousering the difference...

Of course it was a polemic to lump the entire private sector together with the implications I made. Where there is true competition then the private sector may be appropriate - even then without oversight and regulation we have unrestricted neoliberalism, with all the damage that does (try buying shoes or clothes not made in Far-Eastern sweatshops, and think on how that has led to a race to the bottom, with those at the top behaving in the most craven ways). I was wondering about the total acceptance across the globe of capitalism in its current form.

British Rail has come up quite a bit: Peter Parker, who ran it before privatization, was critical of the under investment in the railways under successive hostile Governments. He made the point that if BR received the same subsidies as SCNF (the French national railway) he could offer a completely free service. Subsidies today to private rail operators are higher than ever.

It may just be the British disease that is the cause of our economic decline, and not just the Uk's infatuation with all things private. Get yourself a PPE from a prestigious university and you are on the merry-go-round of lucrative contracts and power. The PPE was only ever a process of conditioning the upper classes to run the Empire. (Stop press: we don't have one anymore). Successive prime-ministers and front benches provide evidence of the failings of this way of doing things. The Robert Koch Institute's Corona virus task force is led by an epidemiologist who did a PhD in epidemiology. The British equivalent is run by Dido Harding - who has a long record of catastrophic failure ( and is being entirely consistent in this role). She has, like so many who purport to be of value in the higher echelons of public and private sectors, a PPE from a prestigious university.

kwackers wrote:So you're trying to imply that cleaning up the waterways was something the water companies did out of public duty and not because legislation (both ours and the EU) was forced upon them? (And fairly recently at that).

I doubt either private or public would have made that much difference in this case.
However I've seen enough private companies squeal when stuff has been forced upon them and more than a few that have used their political clout to get things changed in their favour.

I'm not implying anything like that. I'm saying they've made a huge difference in the health of our waterways. I've not made any statements on how that was done or what sticks/ carrots were needed. I have just seen a major reversal of pollution over the post privatisation period.

I was told at the time of privatisation there was some legislation already in place to clean up waterways. That was from a kayaking contact who worked as a troubleshooter for United utilities. The guy was never off duty often having to turn back just before putting paddle to water on a trip. Prior to that time vhere was no sign of public sector utilities making the necessary improvements / controls.

Later on obviously EU got involved and even then it's taken threat of or even actual legal action before British government took the necessary steps. If HM Government can't take take actions when they are legally obligated by law then what chances do you think a state owned company would behave better than their political masters?

You don't think public sector organisations don't squeal when improvements are forced on them too? Usually the unions do it for them but that's another topic best left for elsewhere.

The only truth is that no system has worked so far. Do you think it's best to repeat old systems or try new ones? The idea of keep repeating until you get the result you're happy with seems a backwards approach. Is there not a third, fourth or even fifth system we could try instead?

pliptrot wrote:British Rail has come up quite a bit: Peter Parker, who ran it before privatization, was critical of the under investment in the railways under successive hostile Governments. He made the point that if BR received the same subsidies as SCNF (the French national railway) he could offer a completely free service. Subsidies today to private rail operators are higher than ever

France subsidises its railways by 300% more than we do and only runs 27% more passenger miles per year. I don't think most British people want to pay for train drivers to retire at 52. Of course there may be a medium between the SNCF subsidy and ours.

This is of course entirely anecdotal but we did a good holiday travelling round France by train some years ago. However the number of non-running services where there was a rail replacement instead of the train was significant, far higher than a comparable number of UK services, and my experience of UK services is quite wide and disparate.

Tangled Metal wrote:I'm not implying anything like that. I'm saying they've made a huge difference in the health of our waterways. I've not made any statements on how that was done or what sticks/ carrots were needed. I have just seen a major reversal of pollution over the post privatisation period.

But you are implying that the cleaning up was a function of privatisation otherwise what's your post about?

The difference in the waterways is a function of legislation and nothing to do with how the company is run or funded.
It's not like every waterway is clean, or every sewer system is processed before being dumped, or the quality of water in every tap is spot on or there are no leaks is it?

Tangled Metal wrote:Prior to that time vhere was no sign of public sector utilities making the necessary improvements / controls.

To paraphrase; "before something was done nothing was happening".
Which amounts to sweet FA as an argument. Where's the evidence that the public sector was ignoring legislation? OTOH there's plenty of evidence that the private sector has ignored such legislation, otherwise why the fines?

Tangled Metal wrote:The only truth is that no system has worked so far. Do you think it's best to repeat old systems or try new ones? The idea of keep repeating until you get the result you're happy with seems a backwards approach. Is there not a third, fourth or even fifth system we could try instead?

The current system is hardly new is it? And lets not forget that the "old" systems were frequently taken out of private hands in the past precisely because they were dysfunctional.
IMO if the will exists you can make a system work regardless of whether it's private or public - but I suspect that's not really the point here.