Privatisation: can anyone give me an example of where it's really worked well?

[WinkyWinkola]

I mean, the railways were privatised and the government still subsidises the railway companies so they can pay their shareholders their dividends. Consumers however pay soaring fares and suffer poor quality service.

The water companies were privatised and they make enormous profits without investing in infrastructure.

The hospitals outsource their cleaning staff and the incidences of disease rises and the standards of cleanliness decline.

There never seems to be state of true capitalist competition in these areas anyway.

I just don't see how privatisation benefits any one really. One cannot be proud of poor standards and a big profit, surely?

No, no examples that I can see...

I can't think of any.

ooh, directory enquiries has to win the award for most pointless privatisation of no use whatsoever to any single user of the service. I'd be willing to bet whoever dreamed that one up has benefited in some way - probably a few tasty non-exec directorships paying handsomely for turning up at two meetings a year involved.

I would really honestly like examples. I believe in profit but just not taking the p*ss. Does that make sense? Good service etc.

BT and BA.

Both are globally successful companies. Ok they are not perfect and their monopoly-like powers have been a challenge for the regulators at times - but compared to their nationalised equivalents elsewhere they have worked well.

The problem with privatisation was not privatisation - but consistently poor regulation of monopoly or oligopoly powers that mean customers are paying more for less as prices rise and quality of service falls.

Oh and Directory Enquiries wasn't a direct privatisation. It was a BT run monopoly for years, and was then opened up to other providers.

BA is a bit of a funny one - the shift to profitability came before the sell off - Sir John King turned it around and then it was sold.

I have to say that (as an unreconstructed lefty) telecoms provision does seem much better now than pre-privatisation.

But I think tbh the message from BA and elsewhere is that in practice ownership is not key to success. As BeenBeta says, regulation is very important, and also effective management (which can be public or private, but needs the backup of the owners, whoever they are).

Access to borrowing/capital is also critical, which I think (not an expert at all on this) was an issue for publicly owned companies because of the impact on the PSBR. (Not that this should necessarily have been a problem if they were borrowing to invest, as one would expect a large company to do, but politically it was an issue IIRC.)

"Oh and Directory Enquiries wasn't a direct privatisation. It was a BT run monopoly for years, and was then opened up to other providers".

But with BT it was free until someone saw a way of making a profit.

BT was a good privatisation which is why it stands out in the midst of many "rip off the public" poor ones. It was however sold far to cheaply.

BA, dont have enough information to have an opinion.

The utilities and Railways have been a total rip off.

If you see him tell Sid we were mugged.

Bt. I Remember what it was like before it was nationalised. You had to wait weeks for a phone to be connected.

For an example of how awful things can be with state owned utilities look no further than Northern Ireland' s water monopoly.

Mind you Abr1de, have you tried getting a phone connected recently - we had no phone/internet for 6 weeks after we moved (despite there being a line in the house) - took our friends up the road 2 months!

But I agree, in general the service is better these days.

BT and BP are surely the best examples of successful privatisations.

Contrary to popular opinion, the privatised railways run far better than the nationalised ones by pretty much every objective metric - though the privatisation itself was totally botched.

BA was working well until Marxist UNITE bosses decided they wanted to kill off our national carrier.

BG too runs better than it did when it was a State monopoly.

In my mind, the worst privatisation was the flogging off of 3G licences for next to nothing by one G Brown. We could have made tens of billions more from those.

Abride, some of the private water companies are no better when it comes to customer service. The private Water are still pumping shit into the Thames at times with no penalty.

"For an example of how awful things can be with state owned utilities look no further than Northern Ireland' s water monopoly"

Yes but Ab1de, is that because it's state owned? A monopoly? Who knows?

Besides, aren't all the English regional water companies monopolies? Yorkshire Water has no known competitors as far as I am aware and has been reprimanded by OffWat many a time for high prices and lack of infrastructure investment.

What's the difference? Where's the benefit? Apart from big short term profits to shareholders and the rest can rot?

Is that a sound business philosophy? I don't think so.

I do agree that there should be genuine competition when things are privatised, as well as clear demarcations of responsibility - and this was not always the case - most spectacularly, with the railways.

What's the difference? Where's the benefit? Apart from big short term profits to shareholders and the rest can rot?.

That is the position of most big companies, there are obvious exceptions. Smaller companies tend to give far better service because they are closer to their customers.

"Contrary to popular opinion, the privatised railways run far better than the nationalised ones by pretty much every objective metric - though the privatisation itself was totally botched"

Except fares and subsidies to the owners, with the way they have been allowed to raise fares way above inflation it bloody well should be a good service which in all cases it is not.

With the same subsidies and fare levels BR would have done far better, no shareholders to pander to.

Fortunately, with the upcoming privatisation of the NHS, there will be plenty of competition - and the people responsible are also pretty clear - namely, your local GPs.

longfinger - are you really holding up BP as an example of success? Only I'm sure there are some grieving relatives and distraught communities in America that might disagree with you. And it was the cut-throat drive for profits and sod safety - the worst aspects of capitalism - that caused the crisis. As always.

British Gas - yeah, right, that'd be why the retail price follows the wholesale price so closely. And it's so easy for customers to understand whether they are getting a fair deal and compare with other suppliers.

BA - I suspect senior managers wanted to pick a fight ? they have certainly refused to compromise. Not much leadership there - except the 'if you dare to join a union we'll cut your pay package' type.

longfinger - NHS - yeah, loads of competition. That'd be why KPMG have won a contract to run the whole NHS in London.

LFN, your opinon please.

If I have cancer and need a certain operation or drugs and Dr Smith wont fund it or cannot because his "business" has run out of money for the current year do you honestly think I can go to Dr Singh and ask him to pay?.

LFN, your opinon please.

If I have cancer and need a certain operation or drugs and Dr Smith wont fund it or cannot because his "business" has run out of money for the current year do you honestly think I can go to Dr Singh and ask him to pay?.

edam By all accounts, over the decades, BP has been an extremely successful company. Of course Deepwater Horizon was a disaster, but I am talking "overall picture" here.

Do you really think BP would have its current reach and expertise if the government still owned most of the shares?

The basic service BG provide is now far more reliable now they have to compete with other suppliers.

And as for BA - well, all I can say is thank heaven for Willie Walsh. He pretty much brought the airline branch of UNITE to its knees last time round - by the end, hardly any shirkers were striking and almost all were crossing the pickets. When the strikers' demands were so ridiculous, they thoroughly deserve all the contempt that was rightly flung their way.

newwave That happens right now - it's just that the rationing is done by PCTs and NICE.

Expensive treatments will have to be rationed in a single-payer system - there is no alternative. To me, it's better that maximum value is extracted from limited budgets, by allowing competition and choice.

I am not worried about shareholder profits - over time, efficient providers will drive down prices by far more than the meagre dividends on offer.

For an example, see the PC market. The price of a basic PC has gone down by a factor of about 10 in the last 20 years - and I would argue that is precisely because companies like Dell, HP, and IBM compete vigorously with each other.

Why should the NHS buy computers from someone like Dell or IBM?

We are allowing (shock, horror) PROFITS to go to the evil shareholders of those companies (aka, you and me, in our pension funds).

Would the NHS not be far better making its own computers? Then the vast SAVINGS could be ploughed in, leading to joy, happiness, and rainbows.