Drop The Dead Dogma

Says Charlie Marks:

Two items from Tribune on health and education show that New Labour are far from burying the failed neo-liberal model.

First, healthcare:

Unison has urged the government to rethink its whole approach to NHS reforms in the wake of a damning new report on the cost of commissioning and outsourcing in the health service.

The public sector union has called on the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson, to concentrate on giving NHS patients the care they need and deserve – as well as ensuring the taxpayer gets real value for money – rather than using health service reforms as a smokescreen to outsource or privatise services and “throw precious money away to the private sector”.

The call comes in the wake of a hard-hitting new report – called Driven by Dogma – from the Office for Public Management. In a damning verdict it says outsourcing in the NHS has failed to deliver value for money, proper patient involvement or improved working conditions for staff.

The Government’s pre-Budget report made much of the potential efficiency savings to be made by the NHS from shared service operations with the private sector. But first hand evidence in the new report, examining the experience of those commissioning and delivering services, reveals that promised cost benefits have failed to materialise and quality has suffered.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “At a time when finances are increasingly tight, the NHS cannot afford to be throwing precious money away to the private sector and wasting time and resources on the complexity of the commissioning process.

“Patients want more involvement in decision-making and staff want to spend more time on providing excellent patient care rather than tendering for contracts.

“Unfortunately, this report shows that the various reforms to outsource or privatise parts of the NHS are working against these goals.”

The union says there are realistic alternatives – Scotland has recently announced it will no longer permit any contract cleaning and Wales has done away with the purchaser-provider split in favour of a more sensible and user-friendly integrated system.

Second, education:

Trade unions have hit out at plans by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills to privatise parts of the schools inspection service.

According to a leaked memo, Ofsted intends to outsource inspections of early education and childcare provision early next year.

It says privatising early years inspections – which ensure nurseries, pre-school provision, summer play schemes and childminding services are safe and secure and meet educational standards – will “provide better outcomes and save money” but Unison, the PCS and the FDA senior civil servants’ union say the idea is wrong is principle and bad in practice.

Unison national officer Jon Richards said: “It is outrageous that Ofsted is privatising early years inspections. Parents need to have confidence in the inspection system and know their children are safe and will be well cared for.

“There is a very real danger that jobs will go and the quality of inspections will fall if the focus shifts from raising and maintaining standards to cutting costs and making a profit.

“The decision to privatise inspections has serious implications for staff, parents and children.”

PCS national officer Neil March said: “Introducing the profit motive into inspections, combined with the naive belief that ‘the market’ has all the answers, will end in failure and further demoralise dedicated staff. It will lead to corners being cut and a loss of expertise.”

The unions think Ofsted wants to “wash its hands” of staff. Mr Richards said: “It has hundreds of equal pay cases outstanding and this is a crude attempt to deal with the problem as the workers pursuing these claims will be the ones to go.”