by Keith Richmond
ANGRY union leaders have attacked John Hutton’s plans for more privatisation of public services when there is mounting evidence that the policy does not work. The Secretary of State for Business infuriated the unions when he unveiled a controversial study by right-wing economist DeAnne Julius which recommended more outsourcing of public services to private companies.
Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail described the report as “a thinly disguised case for privatisation – which fragments public services and does not deliver value for money.” She added: “It is time for an end to this market madness. We are campaigning for the retreat of private sector involvement in our public services.”
GMB national officer Brian Strutton said: “It’s a completely one-sided report, as you might expect. It starts by assuming that public sector services are best provided by the private sector – but there is no evidence that this is the case.”
DeAnne Julius, 59, is an American economist, now based in Britain, who has worked extensively in the private sector. She worked at the World Bank in Washington, pursuing an aggressive free market and privatisation agenda, and then as an analyst for the CIA in Virginia. She was chief economist at British Airways and Royal Dutch Shell and a founder member of the monetary policy committee of the Bank of England. She is now a non-executive director of BP, Serco and Lloyds TSB, on the advisory boards of several British and American hedge funds and is chairman of Chatham House in London.
Labour backbenchers, as well as trade union activists, are furious that someone with such a background – running with a pack of multinational companies who advocate a right-wing answer to every problem – should have the ear of a Labour Government already unpopular with its core vote.
Her report claims that “competitive tendering” has led to cost savings of between 10 and 30 per cent and improved service quality, although it does not set out what these are or how they have been measured.
She concludes: “These [private] firms make a significant contribution to UK citizens and taxpayers.”
But Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: “We need a genuinely independent review of the public services industry, one that asks whether its increasing role and influence is really in the interests of taxpayers and public service users, rather than simply asking multinational companies what would make their lives even easier. Lately, we’ve heard complaints about the government listening to the trade unions too much, but this exercise shows who’s really calling the shots.”
And PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “It is appalling that this Labour Government is now more obsessed with selling off our public services to put profits in the pockets of millionaires than caring about the lives of the millions of people who rely on those services.”
