Private hands off public services!

"NOTHING IS off limits now and the potential for the private sector is
massive," one businessman gloated to the Financial Times. He was talking about
New Labour’s manifesto commitment to ‘outsourcing’ our public services to
private firms.

An information technology and outsourcing analyst, Kable, says that up to
£60 billion worth more of our public services could be in private-sector hands
by 2007.

The government is already buying an ever-widening range of services from
private suppliers – hospital operations, electronic tagging, IT functions etc.
As a big business lobbyist points out, the government spends 42% of Britain’s
GDP so the public sector is still the biggest purchaser of goods from private
firms.

For years New Labour has been outsourcing any new services and selling off
much of the rest to private companies like Capita. This firm runs the Criminal
Records Bureau, the teachers’ pension system and London’s Congestion Charge.
In 1996 its turnover was £112 million, last year it was £1.3 billion. Total
returns for shareholders have averaged 36% a year.

Private firms are also muscling in on the NHS through the Private Finance
Initiative (PFI). Between 2000 and 2003, 26% of Labour’s new NHS money was
spent paying PFI charges for overpriced private-built new hospitals.

Who’s made money out of it? Private companies like Carillion who value
their PFI schemes at £83 million, a ‘healthy’ return on a £29 million
investment. By selling off investments on the ‘secondary market’, they’ve
doubled their share price in the last six years. Such parasites will still be
sucking our cash from the NHS in 30 years time.

Privatisation schemes and outsourcing are a far more expensive way of
providing public services than public ownership.

But Blair is encouraging these parasitic private owners. Big business aims
to steal our future – don’t let them.