vatising lilies
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PER to your Public Utilities e (CMJuly 2) and would like omment upon your Editorial the articles discussing the re of municipal services and her possible privatisation. ou say "Local government sport is an area that
lands close examination," ch is quite true. You add that are are enough haulage rators about to cope with the ed transport requirements of ii authorities, and they could vide more efficient and less ensive service than direct )ur achieves." It is, if I may so, an astonishing statement ome from one who is a ow of the Chartered Institute .ransport. It shows an
rarent lack of understanding le issues involved.
roviding the transport u i rem ents for local 'ernment is a highly cialised function. Most borities operate a range of ides from car-derived vans o ph isticated tankers, road aepers, and refuse collection icles. Many of these vehicles Dive a similar level of Inology to an automated car nt; any run-of-the-mill liege contractor with little or knowledge of the demands h machinery makes, not only he user but the vehicle that ries it, will soon be in trouble. gain I have to call you to task failing to assess objectively he pros and cons of the tatisation argument and rse still, failing to ask all the questions.
erhaps you should ask how it "let contractors with little or previous knowledge or )erience of running municipal vices can claim such )stantial savings over council vices run by trained and alified officers of the council h many years of experience? 'rivatisation has not led and will not lead to fewer bureaucrats on council pay rolls. The opposite is the case; more bureaucrats are needed to control the contracts and to monitor the contractor's performance.
The savings claimed for privatisation are very impressive, but significantly it is very difficult if not impossible to get all the facts and figures. We in the trades union movement strongly believe that if they were readily available the issue of privatisation would be dead.
Almost all the contractors interviewed claim to be operating efficient services with smaller labour forces, and substantially better wages. Adding up these kind of claims made for and by Exclusive on their Southend contract shows that any savings on wages and salaries can only be marginal at best.
We find the same results when we look at transport, which is the' next major element in a cleansing budget. Most operators are taking over the existing fleet of the authority, mostly comparatively new and expensive vehicles. What sort of price are the contractors paying for these vehicles? Are authorities having to write off large sums of money in debt charges and depreciation to finance these deals?
These are very relevant questions. Trades unionists in local government know what it costs to buy a refuse collection vehicle; it is a lot of money. We also know how much it costs to service debt charges and depreciation, tax and insurance, fuel and finance, repairs and maintenance. It is foolish to pretend that contractors can magic away these costs that are determined by circumstances beyond their control just as much as they are beyond the control of local councils.
Which brings us to the last major element in a cleansing budget — depots. Mostly they occupy large areas of land in prime locations. Council treasurers are inclined to charge the full cost of renting such valuable sites to the services using them. In most cases contractors are operating from the same depots, which provokes the question: what sort of rentals are contractors paying for the use of council depots? Trades unionists have much experience of the way budgets are juggled to suit the purpose of our political masters. We call it bottom-line accountancy; it has plagued this country for a long time now.
Such studies as are possible suggest that contractors are getting a derisory return on their investment; that must only increase once they have to go to the market place for new vehicles and to maintain and improve facilities.
According to CM, so far 16 authorities have handed over their services to eight different contractors. This tends to support a view held in trades union circles that no contractor can afford to take on too many contracts at the knock-down prices currently on offer. An bbservation that suggests that eventually when local authorities become more committed to privatised services a more realistic price structure will emerge.
What does not seem to be generally understood, even by councillors and the efficiency "experts" that advise them, is that there is a relationship between all the services of local government. Transport maintenance and repair is a good example. In almost every case where contractors have taken over major services they have relied on the council to provide this most essential backup.
Such facilities are beneficial to all the council services; that is why any move that introduces the fragmentation of services cannot possibly in the long term term promote the efficient operation of services.
In local government we have been plagued by the interventions of consultants and efficiency experts for 15 to 20 years. Those who resisted these ill-conceived interventions were quickly labelled trouble-makers and worse still subjected to much criticism in the press. But what is the end product of all these interventions? Having made a monumental fist-up of services, these "experts" move on to pastures new, leaving those whose living it is to struggle with ideas, methods, systems, that never have worked and never will work, until now we are ripe for the intervention of the contractor.
One last thought. In later editions of CM there is much relief that MoT test stations are not to be privatised. Does it not seem strange that those who have been ardent in their support of municipal privatisation were not so enthusiastic at the prospect of being on the receiving end of privatisation themselves?