"Well the
schlubs are here in Downing Street!" Arturo said gleefully.
"What exactly are
schlubs?" I asked. I knew full well that Arturo had spent sometime perusing the Oxford English Dictionary. I knew he was about to regale me with the definition.
"For your education, my dear old pal. A schlub is: a talentless, unattractive, or boorish person. You'll find the definition on the web at http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/schlub." He looked exceedingly pleased with himself at this display of technological nous!
He'd obviously been reading
The Observer article by
Will Hutton headlined:
The public sector isn't perfect but at least it doesn't fleece us
In the article, Hutton comments on the way people and the media seem to be ignoring the way the
bankers,
engineering contractors,
service companies, amongst other Private Sector entities, are behaving. At the same time, the media is full of stories castigating the
Public Sector. He writes:
Lloyds Bank casually announced last week that it was setting aside another £1.8bn to meet potential claims from customers after knowingly selling them expensive insurance policies they could not need nor use. The grand total of provisions it has made is now nearly £10bn for claims from up to 700,000 people – a stunning indictment of its business practices.
Hutton continued:
Lloyds is not alone: the other banks have earmarked another £10bn for mis-selling similar products. Their investment bank arms are engulfed with charges of colluding to rig interest rates and foreign exchange markets on a global scale, along with more record-breaking fines. Meanwhile, the average customer's experience remains dismal.
Not a pretty situation - as Arturo would say 'they sound like a right load of schlubs!'
Hutton's article proceeded to show the '
disgraceful behaviour' of
Bombardier. He went on to highlight:
Then there are Serco and G4S, with their litany of failures as holders of government contracts. The root of their difficulties is, whatever their original virtues, both have built a culture in which exploiting, rather than serving, the customer comes first – whether it's Serco charging the state for electronically tagging prisoners who did not exist or G4S woefully underproviding security guards for the Olympics. The same dynamic – transient, greedy owners and pay systems that over-reward short-term financial success and cutting corners – produces the same result.
Another cartload of schlubs!
Hutton then berated the proposals for the
Probation Service:
Now large parts of the probation service are to be run in the same way by the same kind of company, with the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, absurdly promising more " reform" and "efficiency".
His final section commented on the Public Sector:
The public sector is imperfect: it is run and operated by fallible human beings. There are spectacular failings, ranging from the BBC's wasted £100m on its digital media initiative to the unfolding IT disaster over universal credit. But what it does not deserve is universal castigation because a priori it must be useless. It is accountable. It does not loot its users. It is pretty efficient. It is humane.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/08/britain-private-sector-public-sector-ethics-customers
On 18 February,
BBC Radio 4's
'File on Four' had a programme entitled
'Repeat Offenders'. It commented:
Probation staff are currently being told where they will be working under a radical reform of the service. The government is transferring the management of low and medium risk offenders to private companies and high risk cases will be handled by a national probation service.
The Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, says the reforms are necessary to cut reoffending rates and save money which will be ploughed back into providing support to all prisoners who have served less than 12 months.
But opponents claim the reforms are being rushed in and will put the public at risk.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vf0f7
There was hardly a single person, on the programme, who thought that the proposed new regime whereby
new private providers will only be paid in full if they achieve a reduction in reoffending
could possibly work.
The Government has put back the start date to these probation service changes from May till July! Big deal! They are just postponing the inevitable disintegration of a once valued Public Service. Meanwhile, well qualified and experienced Probation Officers are leaving their jobs in droves. Who will replace them? If the fiasco of
G4S and the Olympics is repeated - then heaven help both released prisoners and the general public.
Remember the Care Homes travesty a couple of years ago? Most of them had been handed over to the
Private Sector but were in such financial difficulty and had been so badly managed that several homes were forced to close. It was the public sector that had to step in to try to find homes for many of the elderly residents who had nowhere to go. Remind you of the banking fiasco, does it?
In 2011
Jeff Taylor writing in '
The Economic Voice' said:
The number of care homes that have gone bust is more than double the number of last year’s says a top accountancy firm.
Over the 12 months to September 30th 2011 73 care homes went bankrupt compared to the previous year’s 35, which equates to a 109% increase says the Top 21 accountancy company Wilkins Kennedy.
Local authority cutbacks, says Wilkins Kennedy, is putting pressure on care homes struggling with high debt and increasing rental obligations.
Partner at Wilkins Kennedy, Restructuring & Recovery, Anthony Cork, said “The care sector has gone through a long period of expansion during the boom years with many companies taking on large debts to fund growth. This worked fine as long as local Government funding kept increasing, but with the recession and the cutbacks that ensued, many care homes found themselves unable to service their debts. In a growing economy, they could have sold their property assets for redevelopment to reduce their debt levels, but this wasn’t an option because there are no buyers in the current market.”
Some care homes went into sale and leaseback deals so as to free up money for expansion schemes. But now they are faced with having no property and guaranteed annual rent increases, which are above market rates in this depressed property environment.
http://www.economicvoice.com/care-homes-under-pressure-and-going-bankrupt/50025685/
It was a litany to make even a rampant capitalist weep! They've privatised water! They've privatised energy! They've privatised almost anything and everything that was once considered an asset for the people of this country. What next, one wonders?
Schlubs at the door or not, Arturo and I are going out for a stroll in Downing Street! We saw a couple of rats running through both No.10 and No 11. They'll make a tasty snack, if we can catch them!
Bye
