7 August 2015
George Osborne has just launched an online consultation asking public sector workers how to reduce waste, save money and improve public services. It's being billed as a Dragons' Den competition for ideas about public services.
But he hasn't asked for input from public service users.
Maybe that's because so many people know that the Chancellor's own ideas don't add up. He is privatising our precious and profitable public assets – without even asking us first. And he is encouraging more outsourcing by councils and government, wasting money on companies like G4S and Serco and putting profit ahead of our needs.
We'd like to turn the tables and put him in front of the Dragons' Den team to defend the biggest privatisation ever.
How can we put Osborne under pressure for his crazy ideas? Show that you want to put George in the Dragons' Den by joining the event on facebook and responding to the consultation.
You can respond to the consultation here – the deadline is Friday 4th September at midnight.
Remember not to be rude or your response won't be considered. Here are some ideas you can pick and choose from:
- Instead of selling off RBS at a £14 billion loss to the taxpayer, turn it into a network of local, publicly owned banks – this could save money for local councils and boost the economy
- Instead of selling off our public assets, keep them in public hands so that profits aren't wasted
- Instead of wasting £1.2 billion a year on a privatised railway, bring the railways into public ownership
- Instead of privatising the NHS, save £4.5 billion a year by scrapping the internal market and reinvest private company profits into patient care
- Instead of pushing outsourcing, encourage councils to bring services in house to reduce costs, improve quality and flexibility
- Improve public services by giving the people who actually use them a say: make contracts and data transparent; give us a right to recall bad providers and consult us about privatisation and outsourcing
We suggest you click 'other' for your sector and respond as a public service user – and click 'unknown' if you don't know the answers to the questions.
Once you've written your response, you might want to save it as a comment below.
You can also join the online event on facebook to put George Osborne in the Dragons' Den.
Comments
JayneL replied on Permalink
Excuse Us, Mr Osborne; Public Assets are NOT Private Handouts https://jaynelinney.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/excuse-us-mr-osborne-public-assets-are-not-private-handouts/#comment-6649 … AGREE? Pls SIGN https://www.change.org/p/george-osborne-chancellor-of-the-excequer-stop-using-our-money-to-finance-private-corporations-repay-it-into-public-services-f8e0659c-9265-4dbe-8710-574463b1ba2c?just_created=true
Stewart Rotherham replied on Permalink
Selling off family assets to balance the books is rarely a sound, long-term strategy. It is Jam today, with the risk of poverty in the future. The profit-making financiers will be most unlikely to bail us out when we need it, in the future. As far as infrastructure is concerned, the main financial risk is in the construction phase, whilst the profit comes in the operational stage. It is entirely WRONG for the public purse to carry the risk and the private sectorto then reap the profits.
Marian Standen replied on Permalink
Pointless having a manifesto to be elected when you get into power you just do the best for your rich friends and hedge fund contributors instead of the people who put you in power by believing your lies.
alan parker replied on Permalink
Also please explain the profit or loss to the tax payer over change or East Coast Rail to Virgin with precise figure and what political donations are received from companies who get government contracts and franchises?
Ron Thorp replied on Permalink
Put him in jail
Derek White replied on Permalink
What a cheek! He tells public sector workers they can't have a proper pay rise then expects them to reduce so called waste when what's needed is more funding.
Diesel Cummins replied on Permalink
The Dragons Den if you can find a real fire breathing Dragon, if not in amongst the general population in the worst prison in the UK, the USA, the World even!
Martin replied on Permalink
A 5% sale of RBS shares nets the Tax Payer a loss of £1 Billion and this twit of a Chancellor then tells government departments for £12 Billion in savings; YOU WHAT! Is that to make up for some of the overnight £1 Billion loss you just made for us George?
George that’s like me playing the Roulette wheel, placing all your money on green zero and watch 13 come up, then shrugging my shoulders when I have just lost you a massive one with nine zero's on the end.
George you’re making the situation worse not better.
Conclusion:- We have an incompetent Tory tw#t in charge of our country's finances. Never, not now, not in the future can a Tory Chancellor say that the nations finances are safe under their control.
"Bring privatised industries and companies back under Public control, including the Railways, Royal Mail and the Utility Companies".
Billyd replied on Permalink
I am afraid there will be not one public owned service left, we will end up like the USA where you have the rich and the poor and am afraid people like us will be on the poor side! I cant believe the cons got voted in again?
Annstewart replied on Permalink
The railway in Scotland is suffering under Dutch ownership and many more people want to travel. Let those who care run the railway as a service for passengers and the people and not the amateurs from abroad who want profit. Leave Caledonian Mcbrayne as it is, much loved in Scotland and it is not your's to sell or do as you please with.
Maralyn williams replied on Permalink
Save on public spending ?why don't members of parliment cut down on spending.subsadised restaurants,house swapping for benefits,traveling expenses that make your eyes water and as for getting away with criminal offences.lets get real.dont add insult to injury by take a look at your own government.Dont forget we have long memories.
bella replied on Permalink
The obvious way to get the economy going Mr Osborne would be to invest , invest in the green industry,renationalise electric, water, gas, buses, trains, banks,the NHS and most importantly invest in young people.In fact you might want to listen to Jeremy Corbyn I am sure that you could learn a great deal about being an honest and fair politician who puts the electorate before the city.
Chris Thomas replied on Permalink
Asset stripping the nation. Public services need to be in public hands, not sold off at mates' rates to the rich and undeserving friends of those in power. French Railways (SNCF) publicly owned and successful, Spanish Raliways (RENFE)publicly owned and successful, German Railways publicly owned and successful. British railways? We are repeatedly ripped off by the privately owned energy companies as well.
Ann Partington replied on Permalink
East Coast Railways, whilst in public ownership, was making a profit for the Government so naturally it was sold off to Richard Branson (although I don't know how much he paid for it).
sheila petch replied on Permalink
Same old story when the conservatives are in power the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. why don`t people wake up in this country and stand up to them.
Alf Littler replied on Permalink
Dear Gideon, are you so afraid of being found out that you changed your name? Maybe you should have stuck to bibles.
Economics is based on numbers and statistics, and as gar as I can see, fails to recognise the people at the bottom, those homeless or poor through the fault of previous Chancellors, those jobless because their product is now cheaper to produce in China, or because the Tories of the 80s regarded destroying the rights and jobs of working people was an end in itself.
Gideon, you are not an Archangel, stick to the hotel room bibles.
Cast out the beam in thine own eye - commit to righting the wrong of your predecessors instead of wilfully persecuting the poor and needy, Oh, and stop giving away our assets - unless the state owns a proportion of profit centres, there will never be enough money to support the Welfare State as you won't tax your friends enough to take care of the people who didn't have a public school and Oxbrodge education.
With kind regards,
Alf
P Hanson replied on Permalink
Osbourne cuts,cuts and more cuts and yet he is prepared to loss 1billion in this sell off, its about time the the population was consulted on this matter it looks if we are heading down the road for another Major cockup IE the Railway privatisation.
David Robson replied on Permalink
Stop wasting money on privatisation of public services. Remember the following formula:
PC = POC + SC + OC + IMC + RBC + EC + FC
(where PC = cost of Privatisation; POC = Cost of Public Ownership; SC = Shareholder Cost; OC - Cost of outsourcing process; IMC = Increased management pay costs; RBC = Rebranding costs; EC = Externalised efficiency costs (increased Income Support, and Unemployment Benefit, and Housing Benefit etc); FC - Fraud costs (eg G4S, A4E etc).
I am sure that you will make huge savings for the taxpayer if you apply this thinking.
M James replied on Permalink
What particularly concerns me is that the privatisation philosophy discourages people from working for an industry or service whose sole purpose is to provide the best possible service for the public. Despite the attitudes of the right, there are people who want to spend their days providing for the general public and are not motivated by profit.
alan parker replied on Permalink
George Osbourne really had better look closer to home with talk of efficiency. Both houses of parliament. Over staffed and over paid. Lets propose reduction of MPs to 500. House of Lords to 150. Reform the voting system to see that we do not waste our votes. That is before we examine their golden plated pensions. Deliver a more understandable legal system that does not need costly advice.
John Rich replied on Permalink
No wonder Jeremy Corbyn is doing so well in the Labour leadership polls! Let's have an end to plutocracy and start running things for the benefit of ordinary people once again, the super rich can look after themselves
Marion Ralls (E... replied on Permalink
George Osborne! Stop ripping off the people's assets and selling them at a discount to your friends. The utilities and the railways, Royal Mail, communications infrastructure, NHS and public services should all be publicly owned and democratically controlled - for both justice and efficiency. And since we currently owned most of the RBS the opportunity should be taken to turn it into a public bank working for the public good.
LKnight replied on Permalink
You couldn't make it up - £1b lost to the Taxpayer but handsome profits for the City. Sickening, hypocritical and unfair. What to do about it? Come the revolution ...
Ann Partington replied on Permalink
To have sold RBS at a loss to public finances is surely an indication of gross incompetence which needs to be investigated thoroughly. The Chancellor is in derelection of his duties to the country. Do we know to whom he has sold RBS?
Barbara Cunningham replied on Permalink
None of Osborne's budgets have been economically and socially beneficial for most people in this country. Democratic governments are voted in to protect and help their electorates not sell them down the river to faceless transnational corporations, Russian gangsters and bankers who deserve prison sentences but never get them. Oh yes, I forgot the private companies which might be inefficient and fraudulent (remember Serco's electronic tagging of dead prisoners?) but which continue to gain obscene amounts of public money. Add in the fact that 'our' railways subsidise cheaper rail travel for Dutch, French and German passengers and we are probably the most stupid and self-seeking electorate who don't deserve votes. No, let's just sit back and watch The Great British Bake Off whilst the Great British Sell-Off takes place. Good job, George.
alan winship replied on Permalink
Public services belong to the public and if the public are not consulted properly about changing these services it could lead to general unrest among the majority of law abiding citizens with no political or trade union axe to grind.
Paul Bale replied on Permalink
Osbourne is a total disgrace who clearly knows nothing about economics while enriching his friends in the City, his party and no doubt himself. Selling off national assests that do not belong to him but to all of us, while starving public services on the way to selling them off too. Our country is being ruined by this man and his monstrous government. The sooner they are got rid of the better for everyone, except the already wealthy he is selling our assets to.
Baz replied on Permalink
Renationalise by paying the original share price less the theoretical amount of dividend paid since issue. No less fair than taxpayers subsidising the share price at issue, as everything was sold off well under value, and certainly no less moral than bailing out banks whose casino mentality caused the taxpayer to dig deeply to rescue them.
Now we have the intellectual Colossus at No 11 trying to convince us that selling something at a loss is some kind of financial miracle. Could somebody please buy him an abacus?
Miriam Osner replied on Permalink
Dear Mr Osborne,
Instead of wasting £1.2 billion a year on a privatised railway, bring the railways into public ownership
http://weownit.org.uk/evidence/railways
Joseph Marshall replied on Permalink
Perhaps an independent body could conduct an enquiry into the broader costs of giving contracts for public services to large corporations like Capita, Serco and G4S. I think there is a social and democratic cost, no less real for being impossible to quantify in terms of pounds and pence. It seems that big companies have ever more control over the everyday lives of the citizens of this country (and many other countries). The idea that they offer greater efficiency than publically-owned bodies does not appear to be based on hard evidence, but on economic beliefs of an almost religious kind (rather like the extreme fundamentalist beliefs among some people of 'faith'). It is a little too convenient that these beliefs can so often provide a phoney justification for a system of crony capitalism. For example, a significant number of our legislators - people who will decide on the future of our National Health Service - have personal financial interests in private healthcare providers. How can such legislators make laws for the good of the citizens they are supposed to represent, when they - the lawmakers - stand to gain personal enrichment from selling off parts of the NHS?
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