Suffolk council plans to outsource virtually all services

kabayiri

Why does everyone think that by outsourcing work, the structures and working procedures will remain the same?

There is plenty of room for change, because there a lot of differences. The potential for cost savings are there.

I have seen the IT infrastructure and phone system in a large northern council, and a modern system in one of the privatised providers. It was like night and day. The council set up was archaic. There was no capability to integrate phone calls into other means of communication.

Working practises will also change. The old concept of 9-5 jobs will disappear for many. Nowadays we expect to be able to contact BT or Virgin late into the evening and at weekends. We should expect the same of the public sector. We are not stuck in the 70s.

Where things can and do go wrong is how the contract is written. Lets be honest, this has never been a strong point of public sector officials, and they may get turned over in the future.

I'm not sure where the outrage comes from on here. I don't remember anyone shouting loudly when Revenue IT services were first transferred to EDS in the mid 90s? Why is this any different?

bendix

Because it's private sector kabayiri. Ergo, it's evil and scary, and there is a proven link to the desire to generate profits and a company's proclivity to sacrifice virgins.

Degenerate

bendix wrote: »

Because it's private sector kabayiri. Ergo, it's evil and scary, and there is a proven link to the desire to generate profits and a company's proclivity to sacrifice virgins.

You could be accused of the same sort of dogmatic ideological prejudice with your assumptions about public sector inefficiency.

Just FYI, my observations about the realities of outsourcing come from being director of a firm that bids for public sector contracts.

Degenerate

michaels wrote: »

Well given that the average privately educated individual probably earns a lot more and pays a lot more taxes over their working life time and given that the general consensus is that the only way we can maintain employment from being outsourced to developing countries is my concentrating on the highest skilled jobs it sounds like it might actually be a winning investment...

Of course, the reality would be that like university degrees, private education would become devalued. We still need people to wait tables and sweep the floor. If everyone is educated privately, so they will be.

bendix

Degenerate wrote: »

You could be accused of the same sort of dogmatic ideological prejudice with your assumptions about public sector inefficiency.

.

Guilty as charged. Why worry about tedious things like facts, when prejudices and preconceived ideas are so much more fun to express?

dopester

Degenerate wrote: »

Of course, the reality would be that like university degrees, private education would become devalued. We still need people to wait tables and sweep the floor. If everyone is educated privately, so they will be.

Private education can be just a matter of providing improved education, at a cheaper price, than government is paying per child in existing state funded schools.

patman99

The rot set in back in 1984, when a PM without any business skills, started selling-off the utility providers instead of looking at ways to streamline the various operations in order to generate a profit for the Govt.

An impossible task?, the French Govt. owned EDF is happy to build and run an electricity infrastructure in this country as their UK operations generate a tidy sum for France.


Begs the question as to why the Council don't chase contracts for their depts. to create a cash-income?.
Is there any legal reason as to why a Council cannot run like a business, and bid for contracts in competition with the private sector?.

Degenerate

dopester wrote: »

Private education can be just a matter of providing improved education, at a cheaper price, than government is paying per child in existing state funded schools.

My niece went to the first privately run state school in the UK and the experience was far from positive. They created very swanky facilities, but generally were no better than a state school at actually educating the children.

What they were very good at was bilking parents for extra money for things such as a school-approved laptop lease scheme, complete with maintenance contract, costing twice what a basic laptop would. They emotionally blackmailed the parents into thinking this was essential to their children's education - there were going to be separate laptop-based and non laptop classes, and the implication of a two-tier system was obvious. In reality the laptops rarely came out in class, because none of the teachers had been trained in teaching methods utilizing laptops, which is a far cry from conventional classroom methods.

Oh, and the other thing they were good at is marketing themselves - you can't google them without reading about what a success story they are.

kabayiri

patman99 wrote: »

Begs the question as to why the Council don't chase contracts for their depts. to create a cash-income?.
Is there any legal reason as to why a Council cannot run like a business, and bid for contracts in competition with the private sector?.

Manchester airport group.

Owned by the council.

Makes a load of money.

'Nuff said

amcluesent

Just as an example of how this works, remember Avon and Somerset bizzies joined the Council in outsourcing back-office to IBM in the South West 1 scheme. And the wife of the Chief Constable billed £200,000 in consultancy to IBM. Funny that. All above board, of course.