David Cameron has tried to make out that the Tories have changed, that when they call for cuts and privatisation they are no longer driven by ideology but by practicality and necessity. Lord Hanningfield must have missed that memo from Conservative HQ. Cameron’s Shadow Business Minister in the House of Lords and leader of Essex County Council put an advert out in the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union that read:

“It is our intention that following a contract award the partner will have the potential to provide any or all of the council’s services, provided that a robust business case, benchmarking and best value test is passed.

“These services will include, but are not limited to corporate and back office functions, environmental services, social care and school-related services.”

This advert was placed with no consultation with the staff or their trade unions and this has needlessly left a lot of employees in the dark and understandably nervous about the security of their jobs. As was pointed out by Unison at the time, there has been no business argument put forward to justify such a reckless wholesale of public services.

Lord Hanningfield recently stated that assessments for the viability of the private the provision of public services is “the same whether you are assessing potholes or care for the elderly”. When we put care for the elderly and potholes in the same category, it might be time to question whether there might be a touch of ideology involved in this proposed privatisation.

The only reason that has been given by Essex County Council for this yard sale of public goods has been the need to make savings of £300m and the desire to keep council tax as low as possible. There are two assumptions made here that expose the Tory ideology at work, the first is that there are no alternatives to cuts and the second is that the market ideology of profit is always appropriate.

Both of these assumptions are just that, assumptions. There are methods other than cuts that can be used to cut deficits (as has been shown in Compass publications) and as a resident in Essex pointed out:

“Ultimately a private company is concerned with making a service profitable, and that usually means bad news for communities who want services to be run as an investment in community, and not as an opportunity to make money.”

This ethos is highlighted in Unison’s Million Voices Campaign, a wonderful campaign that I would encourage everyone to sign up to.

There is a time and a place for profit driven market based ideas but must we presume that the market has all the answers?

| Category Eastern, Public Services