UNISON chief, Dave Prentis, is today warning that Government plans for the
wholesale privatisation of public services, will lead to poorer quality,
high cost services at the mercy of the open market and risky competition.
Dave Prentis, UNISONs General Secretary, went on to say:
The Government wants to wash its hands of providing people with decent
public services. For all its talk of mutuals and charities, the White paper
is nothing but a smokescreen for privatisation and will do nothing to
improve quality.
We will be looking carefully at the fine print and holding the coalition to
account for any illegitimate attempts to hand over services to private
companies, whose primary concern is the bottom line rather than service
users.
The collapse today of home care owners, Southern Cross, should act as a
grim warning about what can happen when the private sector take over public
services. There will be many thousands of elderly residents across the
country who will be deeply distressed about what the future may hold for
them. And staff too will be worried about their jobs at a time of growing
unemployment.
We want urgent Government action to protect the well-being of residents in
Southern Cross homes.
The bottom line should not be profit but public services run by committed
public service staff. The quality, efficiency, accountability, flexibility
and economics of in-house public services just cannot be matched.
Notes to editors:
UNISON has produced a number of reports proving that privatisation is a
recipe for disaster.
* A UNISON survey by Paul Gosling exposes the shocking state privatisation
has left the care industry in and the disasters waiting to happen. The
evidence proves that privatisation is a risky experiment, as these councils
revealed money was drained, standards were driven down and they had a lack
of control over the services.
* A survey by Apse, for UNISON, reveals that half of councils who had
outsourced their services had to bring them back in-house because of
financial failures and inefficiency. 60% of council officers surveyed said
the need to improve efficiency and reduce service costs had led them to
consider bringing services back in-house. After cost, 44% of respondents
said there was a need to improve service quality.
* A UNISON report – Mutual Benefit – reveals that increased marketisation
will lead to a hike in bureaucracy. Mutuals are in danger of being bolted
onto a competitive market for services, pitting them against private sector
providers. Community-based mutuals will struggle to compete, as private
companies undercut them, and outright privatisation of public services is
the likely outcome.