What do we do about privatisation, cuts & public services?
Here’s the latest discussions of the NCIA Planning Group (18.5.10), where we reported on what we’re up to and had a special session on voluntary action, public services and cuts and what we do about it.
Privatised public services – A sign of the future
TREATMENT IN TODAY’S NHS
This is what treatment is like in an NHS hospital today
This is what happened to my sister in a semi-privatised, squeezed by New Labour and Margaret Thatcher, we’re so proud of our standard of excellence we are applying for Foundation Hospital status hospital
This is what happened to my sister, a lovely 48-year-old woman with a mild learning difficulty and a few simple special needs, a person and not a statistic, a person and not a collection of symptoms
This is what happened to her in today’s NHS
What’s 2010 bringing & what’s NCIA doing ’bout it?
2010 promises to be a year of change, upheaval and hardship. On the one hand there is the prospect of a change in government following the General Election. Although the result of the election may lead to some change in the way in which the government behaves and in its choice of priorities, in truth there is little to choose between the parties, which continue to fight for the middle ground and operate according to a consensual managerial and ideological creed. Of overwhelmingly greater importance, the year will see the impact of the country’s indebtedness resulting from the massive transfer of public assets to the private banking sector as, we, the people, are required to bear the cost of this. This will show itself in increased taxation, significant reductions in public spending and deterioration in the quantity and quality of public services. All parties are committed to this direction of travel.
Fighting back
Previous articles in Green Socialist have pointed out that privatisation does not just affect services formerly run by the statutory sector, and also (ironically) that privatisation can sometimes go hand-in-hand with increased state control. Voluntary organisations providing public services are being compelled to adopt the methods and priorities of private businesses through tendering and commissioning procedures. However, the pernicious undermining of the very concept of an independent voluntary sector goes even further. Below, Andy Benson, from the Coalition for Independent Action, looks at how the state and business are eroding this important element of our civil society.
Learning from the Bad Guys
As a “lefty American” traversing the ground of the voluntary sector in the UK, I have often had a strange mixture of feelings:
- a déjà vu experience of seeing very recognizable developments from the US in the 1990s being repeated here: at the behest of a governing party hewing to the perceived center (here the Labourites, in the US Clinton and Democrats), advancing policy prescriptions that rely upon “public choice” economics, privatisation of public services, faith-based approaches, charitable entrepreneurialism, public-private partnerships, and so on
- some envy and admiration of the greater cohesiveness of the UK social sector, which is far more “joined-up”, in terms of general public acceptance of an ethic of social service, and better success in aligning the work of public and voluntary sectors. The decentralization of American service structures means that many examples of progressive, excellent public/voluntary service regimes can be found at state and local levels. Yet most American progressives would gladly take the social, educational and health regimes in the UK over their own.
Voluntary action and privatisation
The article below appeared in the Winter 2005/6 issue (No. 34) of Green Socialist magazine (quarterly journal of the Alliance for Green Socialism). The author retains copyright but it may be reproduced and quoted as long as the author and Green Socialist magazine are given acknowledgement. Read more
Voluntary action and public services
Whilst Annie Kelly’s excellent article in the Guardian (19.3.08) captures my rage about what is happening to the VCS, it doesn’t quite capture the perspective in one important respect – voluntary agencies delivering public services. Locally-based voluntary agencies have been delivering services to people for ever and these organisations form the backbone of the sector. It would be daft to say that they shouldn’t do this. Some of these services – advice and advocacy work being a classic example – have to be independent of the State to do their job properly. The problem with this part of the discussion is that various things have been conflated. Read more