Should we be worried about for-profit organisations starting free schools?

[Fraidylady]

Surely this means the tax-payer will be contributing to the profits?

US company
Swedish company

I don't see why we should be worrying about tax payers contributing to an education company?s profits anymore than we should worry about contributing to BAe's profits when the government buys military hardware, McAlpine when we need a new road built or Serco when we need a managed service provided.

If a company can fill a genuine need for a new school, provide an excellent level of education, great conditions for teaching staff, cost the taxpayer the same per pupil as a state school and still make a profit at the same time, I think we should applaud them and emulate them rather than being knee-jerk suspicious.

What those two said, basically. The government procures services from the private sector all the time. Not really an issue.

Seeing some of the havoc caused by free schools in my Swedish home town I'm not sure I find this takeover by a Swedish company all that reassuring.

Remember the weirdos who were allowed to run schools under Tony Blair's 'ooh, the private sector is so good at providing public services' campaign? Schools that refused to teach evolution, or taught 'intelligent design' as an equal subject?

It's all very well to say it doesn't matter who provides public services, but the evidence is that it does. For both financial and other reasons. The taxpayer often gets a very bad deal - look at any MoD project you care to mention, any government computer project, especially in the NHS, look at PFI hospitals where millions has been creamed off as the contracts have been sold on, without any of the profit coming back to the public and where we are being landed with hideously expensive mortgages for buildings that will be redundant 20 years before the mortgage ends. It's always the taxpayer that picks up the bill if the deal goes wrong - e.g. council services in Norwich (IIRC, just one example) where the company that did maintenace went bust - did the council get its money back? Obviously not, yet it was the taxpayer who had to step in and pay for all those housing estates and other buildings that the company should have been maintaining. All too often it's the company that gets the benefit, the taxpayer who gets the risk.

There's a moral/quality issue too. The government is quietly privatising the NHS - yet private healthcare has no experience of providing acute care on a scale large enough to cater for a whole community, the private sector 'doesn't do' A&E, the private sector doesn't train healthcare staff, so will be getting a subsidy of millions of pounds to start off with, the private sector doesn't insist on the same standards and qualifications as the NHS for employees...

Public services should not be determined by the capacity to make a quick buck, but by what society needs. The people providing those services should be motivated by the ability to care and/or to do a good job, not by mega-bonuses.

The question for me is, how is the sum of money paid to the company calculated, how is success measured, is the money given to them ringfenced in any way etc

Does anyone know?

My concern is that when profits are involved, then there is a drive to maximise them. Especially if the company is listed. There are many ways that a desire to maximise profits could be detrimental to students.

I disagree edam. For example, "the weirdo?s who were allowed to run schools under Tony Blair" were not normal businesses subjected to the exposure of the free market. Those schools were set up by wealthy individuals (in many cases with more money than sense) and as such they were run as the fiefdoms of whichever nob-head happened to be in charge. If your kid went to one of these schools tough. If you don't like the idea of evolution being banned in your kid?s school what could you do about it? Nothing. You certainly couldn't take your money to a rival supplier. The only people who thought that not government owned = free market were the governments of Major and New Labour, hence the colossal balls ups with everything they tried to privatise (see British Rail, Royal Mail, Utilities etc...).

In a real free market system if you don't like the quality, price, ethics, location, colour of the wallpaper etc., you can take your money and go elsewhere and be provided with an identical service with a rival supplier. This is why Tesco's is in competition with Sainsbury?s whereas South West Trains isn't in competition with Merseyrail.

"It's all very well to say it doesn't matter who provides public services, but the evidence is that it does. For both financial and other reasons. The taxpayer often gets a very bad deal" I can see where you are coming from here but more often than not the big financial overspends are caused by the government using a piss poor procurement system and then changing their minds every five minutes. Consider the new aircraft carriers for example. Is it BAe's fault that they are going to be expensive for the taxpayer, obsolete, unnecessary, and will be immediately mothballed once they are completed, or does the blame lie with whoever allowed the 'no cancellation' clause to be written into the contract and has since changed the finished designs several times. Likewise, PFI is a useful method to get desperately needed infrastructure built, however, it was never conceived to be rolled out on such a grand scale.

You also state that the private sector has no experience providing A&E cover. I beg to differ. How do they manage on the continent? Just because its foreign owned doesn't mean that they don't know what they are doing.

As for your final point about motivation, this is again, wrong. I couldn't give a frogs fat arse what makes a nurse/doctor/bin man get out of bed in the morning - so long as they are motivated and do a good job. To turn this point on its head, why should we be allowed to get away without paying public servants what they are worth and, instead, make up for their piss poor pay by abusing the warm feelings they have (however misguided) towards their fellow man? If a Tory came on here and said "let's cut nurses salaries because they're all nice people and are more motivated by their desire to help those suffering than they are motivated by money" they would get torn up for arse paper - yet, how does this differ from your point that "people providing those services should be motivated by the ability to care and/or to do a good job, not by mega-bonuses".

I'm sorry for the essay above.

Serious reservations, yes. I'd say poorly performing independent schools are at the mercy of the market, i.e. parents will pull pupils if it underperforms. There will most likely be a lesser risk to run-for-profit free schools. cory, can you tell us more about what's happened in your home town?