All Councils will be privatised by 2022

All Councils will be privatised by 2022

“More Austerity, Austerity Lite, more cuts, more outsourcing.”

If this is what the May 2014 local elections in London and the 2015 General Election will be fought on then it will mean deeper cuts for local councils.

In which case you don’t have to read Nostradamus to predict the ‘end of days’ for all Councils and you don’t have to look far to see who some might view as the ‘Four Horseman’ of the apocalypse , SERCO, G4S, CAPITA, BT

In Barnet our own Council, are pioneering the Commissioning Council also known as the ‘Disappearing Council’, this model moves away from delivering services and hands service delivery to the private sector.

There are some who will argue that the commissioning model does not mean privatisation adding there are a number of creative innovative ways to deliver services.

What they always fail to acknowledge is the sustainability of these alternatives. It is matter of record that Mutual’s, Cooperatives are simply not able to sustain the cuts to funding from Councils. We are already witnessing the third sector (often pedalled as the ‘soft alternative’ to outright privatisation) struggling to deliver services as the funding streams are cut.

In Barnet the real big contracts have been out tender and all four SERCO, G4S, CAPITA, BT expressed an interest in running our Council.

Capita eventually went on to win both big contracts.

So, back to the prediction whereby all Councils will be privatised by 2022.

 

If you believe all the rhetoric about the savings privatisation guarantee to deliver then it is hard to see how any council will be able to resist the pressure of handing over services to the private sector.