Privatising Child Protection

[brakespear]

it's ****ing shit, all of it.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Like the Tories are doing with the NHS ?

Well yes, just like this government and the previous Labour government have with :

> Some NHS services
> Some defence services
> Some prison services
> Many council services
> Some police services
> Some fire service services
> Some court services

etc etc etc

The problem is that the overly hysterical people out there see a private company providing a service to a public sector body and shout 'privatisation' when it's nothing of the sort. They also jump to the conclusion that services handed to private companies are defacto bad. They are not. The key to outsourcing is to make sure the contract is tight and it is there that many government and council bodies fail. Private companies can often offer a better and cheaper service. I used to work for Capita and I've seen good contracts - the DVLA contract worked very very well because the DVLA know what they were doing when it came to contracts - and bad ones - the Driving Standards Agency contract was an utter farce. Why ? Because the DSA kept changing their mind every five minutes and didn't understand the contract they had signed up to.

I currently work for a company providing services to some government regulators. They use us because it's what we're experts at and they are not. I outsource the servicing of my car ( as I'm sure most people do ) because I know bugger all about cars. It's done me no harm doing so.

People need to get over this 'well private companies make profits so it's sucking public money out of the public services' - if a private company can do it better and / or cheaper then public bodies should outsource.

 

[GreersElbow]

Missed that one. I was already angry enough at the "Uniform Services" (or something similar) course they offer at colleges now.

What's this?

http://www.college.police.uk/en/5248.htm

New scheme essentially having new potential recruits pay between £500-£1,000 for a training scheme which doesn't guarantee them a job at the end of it. My girlfriend studies Criminology and wants to go into policing and were made aware that this may become mandatory as some forces have done.

How I see it, is it's opening up a new market for colleges and private providers. I can see this being linked with other forms of security and safeguarding (such as child protection) and then councils giving out contracts to companies to provide it...

 

[Creaky]

The privatisation of care for the elderly and disabled is one of the reasons our hospitals are under so much strain. Quality of care has decreased, as has entirely non coincidentally the pay and conditions of staff - meaning we further subsidise these shysters through tax credits.

It is truly worrying that you can think there is no problem with homes being privatised.

Having seen how the care homes for the severely disabled that my wife works in have improved over the last twenty years or so following privatisation then no, I'm not concerned. It's easy to forget just how bad many of the Council run establishments really were.