Tory public services will never be "open"

In the Daily Telegraph today, David Cameron writes about his vision for “open public services”. Quite what this means, when he intends to sack thousands of council workers and civil servants, remains to be seen.

Then, later in the article it all he becomes clear. First the prime minister described his vision of "open public services" and this is soon followed by his promise to release public services from the "grip of state control".

In other words, he is going to either privatise large chunks of public services or sub-contract them out to private enterprises. So, we can soon look forward to schools being run by organisations like Serco, or perhaps your local hospital might be renamed the Bristol Royal BUPA Centre , or the BMI Royal Hospital for Sick Children.

When you go to sign on, you might be met by an A4e worker, who would review your claim and sort out your benefit entitlement. Perhaps sections of our local constabularies could be part run by G4S or Reliance Security, but don’t worry, because the training industry will be waiting to ensure all the ‘private firm’ police have SIA cards, in accordance with security industry requirements.

Cameron argues this approach would make public services more accountable, but has he ever asked questions of any of the PFI contractors? Has he ever tried to acquire information about the inner workings of defence or welfare to work contractors? They are not ruled by the strictures of Freedom of Information, so they can keep their books closed and prying eyes out. This is the sort of openness he is really offering.

He also talks about public services needing an injection of creativity and innovation and here he has a point. For too long services have followed a route that sometimes defied logic, simply because ‘this has been how we always do it’.

There’s no doubt there is a need for a review of service delivery across the board, but throwing the baby out with the bath water is tantamount to lunacy. It will destroy jobs, make services less accessible because they will be driven by profit and not need, reduce accountability and threaten those who most use services.

The trade union movement need to force Cameron to rethink his entire policy and show how ill-conceive it really is. PCS and Unison should tackle this issue headlong and if the government threaten to proceed, organise full-scale strike action to force Cameron to rethink his ideas.

Will that happen? In my view, I think it unlikely. More probable is the unions will organise a demo or two and maybe a petition. Cameron will then barnstorm his ideas through and before we know it, we will be in the kind of society Thatcher could only dream of – scary isn’t it.