Call-me-Dave and Georgie Boy have come up with another completely insane plan:
David Cameron has renewed a pledge to give public sector workers the chance to form co-operatives to run services as part of a push to woo Labour voters.
Staff of taxpayer-funded services, such as primary school teachers and nurses, would decide how they were run - within certain national standards. The Conservative leader said the "radical" plan would "unleash a new culture of public sector enterprise"...
Doesn't that sound like a load more self-serving and nigh unaccountable quangoes and fakecharities?
Anyways, what is alarming is that the chap from the Co-operative Party (which is sort of part of the Labour Party) comes dangerously close to talking sense:
"George Osborne's comments show the Tories are completely clueless on co-operatives. Mutuality is about giving communities a say in how services are run. That is about more than involving workers, it is about people running services as a community asset. The Tories don't have co-operative values.
Just as Cameron's Conservative Co-operative movement turned out to be neither a Co-operative, nor a movement, George Osborne's plan for employee-run public services fails to balance the needs of consumers, the public, with the interests of the public-sector workers themselves."
Ignoring the glib use of the word 'communities', if you give him the benefit of the doubt, he could almost be talking about a voucher system for public services where there are identifiable customers (health, education); and for things like refuse collection, at least local voters would be able to choose what level of service they want (weekly, fortnightly, do they want to pay extra for recycling etc) and then choose whomever does it for the best price (be that council employees or subcontracted to a private operator - and if the chosen operator is a workers' co-op, then so be it).
Must stop scanning headlines
26 minutes ago
24 comments:
Sounds like a union to me.
Was going to post on this MW, but you beat me to it.
Re your last para - why not just devolve the whole subject of public services down to local level. As you say, then local people could decide what they wanted and not have imposed on them what central govt wants them to have. It would also mean local councillors earning their crust, so to speak!
On these worker co-ops who elects them and to whom are they answerable? As you so rightly say - just another bloody quango!
"and share any financial surpluses among the staff."
Well, that's going to push standards up. A monopoly service where staff get to keep what's left after they've delivered the minimum service.
So, any innovation gains will not be felt by the people paying for it, but in the pockets of the providers.
"But the essential principle that people in the public sector, whether they are community nursing teams, primary schools, job centres, would be able to take ownership of their own enterprise and run it as a non-for-profit social enterprise or co-operative providing state services is exactly what we are talking about."
Hang on, didn't they say earlier that the staff would get to keep any financial surplusses? Isn't that basically, um, profit?
Another bonkers idea from iDave's swivel-eyed loons in the policy bunker, I see...
When is he going to realise that his only electoral advantage is not being Gordon Brown or Nick Clegg?
Could work.Might be a way of getting rid of public sector management.
Plus there's this criticism:
http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2010/02/will-tory-co-ops-take-off/
To be fair (!) to the Dave and George show, this may just be a blind. A way of getting stuff privatised without it seeming to 'make a profit'.
'Ignoring the glib use...then so be it).'
Exactly.
Why must a co-op be Socialist?
Well. 'cos it doesn't benefit 'tit werkers.
Yes it does.
Well then, well then, the employers always make more than the employees! Gotcha there didn't I?
Well no, not if the employers are the employees.
But there is profit involved and that will go to the employers! Ha! Thou cream faced loons! Get outta that!
See above(p1. last sentence).
'Sounds like a union to me.'
Unions, if they ever do what they are supposed to do, will look after their members first and only--our country's do not.
'Who elects them and to whom are they answerable?'
We do and us.
'Well, that's going to push standards up. A monopoly service where staff get to keep what's left after they've delivered the minimum service.
So, any innovation gains will not be felt by the people paying for it, but in the pockets of the providers.'
That is just so wrong it beggars belief. It is not a monopoly service as it is, primarily, a local service.
It may well be, in the short term, monopolistic but given enough safeguards over a longer term, there should be nothing to worry about.
As to the second:
'So, any innovation gains will not be felt by the people paying for it, but in the pockets of the providers.'
Nope, diddums. Any innovation gains will be felt by 'tit people and(and this is the important bit that you do not so far understand) also by the providers.
'Isn't that basically, um, profit?'
Um.
No.
And JuliaM who is so normally on the ball, has leapt right in there(and hopefully will stop digging:).
DBC is it's usual thoughtful.
Lola's in a twixt.
STB.
p.s. I may(or not) return to this comment for it is a comment under 'comment' and ergo seems to me to be only that which is inferred, i.e. if you wish to comment, please do but there be no onus on me to either reply to comments on yer comments or to even consider other's comments.
As one would.
If that is insensible I care not.
I agree with just about every comment apart from STB who appears to be playing Devil's advocate on this one. A local monopoly is still a monopoly.
Vouchers are still a subsidy. Let locals pay for "local-things" from their citizens dividend.
AC1, I don't see a huge difference between
a) CBI + health vouchers + education vouchers, and
b) higher CBI, with no vouchers.
Yes there is a difference, but it is not huge and in terms of where we're starting, vouchers seems like the first thing to aim for.
The difference is that vouchers are allowances for doing things the state tells you to do.
AC1, yes I know that, but people can understand them and see the merits. In any event, they must be better than taxpayer funded state monopoly of something that could be privately provided.
Vouchers must not come with conditions. The bureaucracy will try it on in the name of 'quality' or 'standards' and so forth. The 'vouchers' have to be the citzens to spend on the service of his or her choice.
That's why I like the idea of a citizens dividend paid by the crown, less the costs of central state.
This also has the marvellous benefit of also con-straining the size of the state.
AC1, yes, vouchers are to some extent a subsidy, but provided they cover less than the full cost of something on which people would otherwise have spent money on (health, education) then that's not too terrible.
Things like health and education are to some extent 'public goods', i.e. an education doesn't just benefit the child, the benefits spill over to the whole of society.
As to your last comment, that is the problem - people genuinely believe that The State can 'help' or 'do more' for certain categories of people without simultaneously harming others. The best The State can do is 'not hinder' people.
L, of course vouchers should have the barest minimum of conditions attached, but that is a separate topic. Call me a fuddy-duddy interfering old Statist, but I don't like the idea of education vouchers being given to Madrassas or health vouchers being given to astrologers.
The major trouble with vouchers is that some people don't like money being given to schools that aren't madrassas (think of all the green indoctrination in the current state crèche system) or don't like pharmaceutical companies.
Imagine if say Prince Charly decided what vouchers could be used for.
Never create something your enemy could use against you. Vouchers could easily be abused by narcissistic socialists (a tautology)
Hell, you sure have stirred up the proverbial hornets nest now, MW!
Now this is the blogosphere at its best!
On second thoughts not sure how it would work in practice.But it will be a sure-fire vote winner.Public sector workers often hate the management;the management tend to be right wing and can't wait to sell out to privatisation.But they are few.
Please God the Tories don't espouse LVT! (Not much chance of that though!)
WFW, "Blue Socialism" is my new watchword.
DCB, unless this goes hand in hand with free choice by pupils or patients, I do not see how it improves anything. If you and I took over a state school with a guaranteed number of pupils, we could just sack all the other teachers, have all the kids sit in the assembly hall all day long and pocket all the money. For example.
But if you give pupils and patients vouchers, then the "management" will just disappear, ILEAs and DFES can be shut down.
Which is why I said I could n't see it working in practice.What could happen is that a group of teachers could bid to run the school all on the same pay scale with none of the cordially disliked headmasters,deputy headmasters ,heads of department etc who get more money and run the place under what is candidly the feudal system.But you could have a second bunch loyal to the old ways under the old headmaster, a figure whom the public repose an unwarranted amount of trust, since s/he rarely leaves the office, a bureaucrat by definition.Who chooses: the parents? the pupils?
Presumably,the National Curriculum
or State Curriculum would stay in place, something which right-wingers often admire,when it looks to all intents and purposes Stalinist.
Also I would n't knock the LEA's.In my experience removing FE colleges from LEA control increased bureaucracy: instead of a few low-paid clerical officers centralising the admin from say six colleges,each college appointed
its own ,who got designated car-parking spaces,took over classrooms and whose numbers were never affected by periodic "restructuring".
But the hint of self-determination for the Poor bloody infantry in the classrooms and the end of the chateau generals on top ,thoughtlessly sending people into the educational equivalent of the battle of the Somme, could be intoxicating.( First World War comparisons were made by the more sentient teachers all the time.)
But freedom is a tricky business.
MW@21.23 Hmm. I don't really mind vouchers going to Madrasses and so forth. With less regulation and more responsibility and less multiculturalism the pressure from their more successful neighbours will see them wither away. Plus of course in my ideal world we'll have a Police 'force' again, not some bleedin' touchy feely Police 'service'.
Not only insane but indicative of the mindset at CCHQ. Heaven help us.
Even before I turned the corner this policy began barking.
Hatstand, utterly hatstand to convert State Monopolies into QANGO co-operatives running a State mandated monopoly.
Ok, unhitch ALL hospitals from NHS control and remove prohibitions to allow them to convert to co-operative status (as long as they buy out, natch). Competition will see which ones survive and provide the best service, but a Job Centre? A Hospital under the thumb of a monopolistic PCT?
Madness.
All it is is window dressing. Behind it all is concentration of control to the centre, for these co-ops will be regulated and subject to "approval" and oversight. Oh yes.
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