- Conference
- 2007 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 13 February 2007
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
This is a time of unprecedented change in public services. The government’s reform of our public services seldom translates into anything other than a liberalisation agenda, with markets opened up to the private sector on the false premise that there will be more choice for the ‘consumer’, namely user of public services. The evidence of the recent UNISON/YouGov poll on attitudes to public services refutes this: there is little public support for more competition in public services. In fact the survey recorded overwhelming support for increased co-operation between service providers as key to delivering quality public services.
In Scotland, despite the highest value of PFI contracts per capita outside London, with projects of over £7 billion either underway or in the pipeline, public opinion in Scotland backed the findings of the UNISON/YouGov poll when building and running schools and hospitals via public bodies topped an ICM/BBC poll seeking the top priority issue for Scottish voters. UNISON is also campaigning against Tory and media claims that the high levels of public spending “crowd out” the private sector and welcomed explicit support for a public sector ethos and the development of a distinctive Scottish public sector model in the Scottish Executive’s consultation paper, “Transforming Public Services”. However, whilst this does not adopt the more extreme public service reforms and the false “choice” agenda seen in other parts of the UK it is still essential to continue to campaign against creeping privatisation through Shared Services and PFI projects.
UNISON has provided overwhelming evidence over the years of market failure in the provision of public services; we have long campaigned against the scandal of PFI and have taken this fight into the Labour Party where successive conferences have called for a review of the government’s PFI policy. Despite these decisions the government’s PFI programme has been expanded, with over 450 PFI projects with a capital value of £47 billion. The repayments for this £47 billion of PFI assets and services will be a staggering £148 billion until 2030 – more than three times the capital cost.
The debate about the funding and provision of public services is also increasingly played out in Europe. European Union (EU) economic policy is based on a free market, pro business ideology. However it is clear that certain EU rules conflict with public service values and are forcing an agenda of liberalisation and the steady erosion of public sector provision onto member states. Conference welcomes the European Trades Union Congress’s recent online petition to defend public services throughout the EU, which calls for EU-wide legislation to protect services from privatisation, liberalisation and competition under the single market. The provision of high quality, accountable public services will remain a key battleground between the forces of private capital and the principles that underpinned the creation of our public services and this Conference:
1)fully endorses the principles embodied within that petition – that Europe-wide legislation is needed that gives priority to the general interest embodied in public services, and that public services are essential for social, economic and regional cohesion;
2)welcomes the continuation and development of our ‘Positively Public’ campaign;
3) agrees that this should continue to be one of our highest campaigning priorities.