wolfie Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 A study by PSIRU, Business School, University of Greenwich in 2005 came to the conclusion that there is no systematic significant difference between public and private operators in terms of efficiency or other performance measures. The theory behind the assumption of private sector superiority is also being shown to have serious flaws. A more specific assumption about privatization is that the UK, which pioneered large-scale privatisation under Mrs Thatcher, experienced a significant productivity gain as a result. However, this is not supported by the evidence, which indicates that there has been no general efficiency gain from the privatisations. Studies in the early 1990s found that most of the improvements in productivity came before privatisation, not afterwards: and municipal refuse collection services improved as much as privatised ones.i A study concluded that their empirical material "?provides little evidence that privatisation has caused a significant improvement in performance. Generally the great expectations for privatisation evident in ministerial speeches have not been borne out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbo Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 QED Wolfman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Like I said, just a myth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Gone very quite on here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Was it managed by the public sector:? Yep, the people in charge of the individual wards, departments and whole hospitals were - and are - public sector employees, the buck stops with them. Funnily enough, next to no MRSA or filthy wards in private hospitals. Coincidence???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 The public sector has far higher sickness, absentee-ism and paid holiday rates than the private. Public sector staff are paid less than their private sector counterparts (or so they constantly tell us!). If true, this means that any public sector worker with an ounce of ambition and more brain cells than fingers will have already left to work in the private sector. The private and public sector workforces are different. As the private sector employs more unskilled workers on the minimum wage than the public sector, and the public sector has a high proportion of professional workers (such as teachers and doctors) it is not surprising that average pay is higher in the public sector. I thought the public sector were always telling us how poorly paid they are compared to counterparts in the private sector? Isn't that how they justify their gold plated, non-contributory pensions? But when I referred to paid holidays, I was pointing out that public sector workers generally get significantly more days of paid holiday per year - I know of several nurses who get close to 7 weeks leave per year, plus time of in lieu if they work overtime weekend or bank holiday shifts. And then, of course, there are the teachers and other school staff on 12 weeks per year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 A study by PSIRU, Business School, University of Greenwich in 2005 came to the conclusion that there is no systematic significant difference between public and private operators in terms of efficiency or other performance measures. The theory behind the assumption of private sector superiority is also being shown to have serious flaws. A more specific assumption about privatization is that the UK, which pioneered large-scale privatisation under Mrs Thatcher, experienced a significant productivity gain as a result. However, this is not supported by the evidence, which indicates that there has been no general efficiency gain from the privatisations. Studies in the early 1990s found that most of the improvements in productivity came before privatisation, not afterwards: and municipal refuse collection services improved as much as privatised ones.i A study concluded that their empirical material "?provides little evidence that privatisation has caused a significant improvement in performance. Generally the great expectations for privatisation evident in ministerial speeches have not been borne out Rubbish. Name me one single publicly owned business in any industry which is able to compete against it's private sector competitors without taxpayer subsidies and artificial monopolies. The British car industry was killed by public ownership. The British steel industry was killed by public ownership. The British mining industry was killed by public ownership. Every single business which has been privatised out of public ownership has gone from requiring subsidy to becoming profitable, reduced it's operating costs, increased it's customer satisfaction, and reduced it's real-terms prices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Send your complaints - sorry, views to The Public Services International Research Unit The Business School University of Greenwich Old Royal Naval College Park Row London c/o David Hall, Jane Lethbridge, Emanuele Lobina, and Professor Stephen Thomas. All of whom are recognised as international experts in their fields, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter T Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Surely, it's not the privatising that is the problem but the incompetents who think they know how to run industry after coming straight from Uni. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Didn't they privatise the railways, and arn't we (the tax-payer) still subsidising it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Funnily enough, next to no MRSA or filthy wards in private hospitals. Coincidence Hardly any MRSA or filthy wards when the cleaning staff were in the public sector, and Private hospitals tend to newer, and cleaning staff at the Bupa hospitals are better paid than those cleaners in public hospitals Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter T Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Funnily enough, next to no MRSA or filthy wards in private hospitals. Coincidence Hardly any MRSA or filthy wards when the cleaning staff were in the public sector, and Private hospitals tend to newer, and cleaning staff at the Bupa hospitals are better paid than those cleaners in public hospitals Down to cutbacks and getting rid of Matron. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asperity Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Don't forget farmer Giles who is also an expert in his fields, in fact he is very often found out standing in his fields Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 The British car industry was killed by public ownership. The British steel industry was killed by public ownership. The British mining industry was killed by public ownership. Yes your examples all failed, but they failed because of having years of under investment by successive British governments. They were no longer capable of standing on their own feet, same as the railways Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter T Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 The British car industry was killed by public ownership. The British steel industry was killed by public ownership. The British mining industry was killed by public ownership. Yes your examples all failed, but they failed because of having years of under investment by successive British governments. They were no longer capable of standing on their own feet, same as the railways Lack of investment or the English comfort zone in not realising that there was competition just around the corner? The unions need to accept a lot of blame for their greed. I recall when they built Skem, that unions forced new firms to close because of their excessive demands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 There doesn't appear to be any automatic correlation between the private sector and reduced charges to customers - as we know from rail fares, energy prices and the banks. Certain industries are essential to the overall wellbeing of the economy, and Gov investment reduces costs to users, including the private sector. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lt Kije Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 Fair point Peter, The unions certainly did not help their membership in whose days, How about a 50, 50 split, Lack of investment by a number of governments and power hungry unions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asperity Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 The problem being the term investment when used in the same sentence as government means subsidy by the taxpayer, which is seen by everybody involved as a blank cheque to spend the money on themselves rather than on the business. If a private enterprise takes this attitude it disappears without trace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 If a private enterprise takes this attitude it disappears without trace. The banks are still with us Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asperity Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 If a private enterprise takes this attitude it disappears without trace. The banks are still with us I presume you are talking about the banks which only survived because of a government subsidy. I rest my case Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 And they didn't disappear without a trace. So I rest my case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
observer Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 Those Banks that are not subsidised, appear to engage in the same inflated salaries, obscene bonuses etc as the rest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asperity Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 And they didn't disappear without a trace. So I rest my case. You seem to have refuted your own argument there Wolfie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter T Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 Back to serious, I was at the Alla, British Aluminium in the early sixties, and they had the monopoly. however, Independent Aluminium Extruders sprang up and caught the Alla napping, which meant they lost a lot of business. A similar thing happened with the production of Hydrogen Peroxide at a local plant. they had a licence to print money until some bright spark imported it fro Europe and sold it cheaper. And all that without union intervention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter T Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 Fair point Peter, The unions certainly did not help their membership in whose days, How about a 50, 50 split, Lack of investment by a number of governments and power hungry unions Yes, I'll accept your 50/50, it will save phoning a friend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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