Money, Money, Money, It’s a Rich Man’s World Part II

Whoever wins the next election will have an almighty mess to clear up. There have been many reforming governments in the past but none have gone about their business with such reckless zeal.  None have set out on their mission without even a recognised objective let alone a fall back plan if it should all go wrong.  This administration will leave in its wake a set of public services in total disarray.  NHS, CJS, welfare payments, disability services, armed forces, social care etc. the ambition of these adventurers is almost boundless.  It would be nice to imagine that their plan was motivated purely by ideology, however on the basis that much of what is happening is not just a move to the private sector.  The fact that these many of these moves are targeted at small businesses (something the government has claimed they want to actively support) that leads one to suspect something altogether more sinister is happening.  For example Legal Aid lawyers are already in the private sector most in small practices and not a corporate multi-national.  Why would that make a difference?  They would have us believe it is to save money, but experience has proven that it could well cost a good deal more than tried, tested and successful existing arrangements.  Maybe because in a large budget the opportunity for maladministration is far greater it can be made to look like it is saving money.  However, there far more sinister interpretations that can be placed on their motives.

They have set out on a path to ruthlessly destroy public services by privatising practically everything that remained in the public sector when they came to power.  Amongst the things they have privatised is the court interpreter service (another small business).  The whole process has been an unmitigated disaster; court cases being delayed or failing altogether because the contractors have sent the wrong interpreter, the interpreter has been late or they have sent nobody at all, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds in wasted court time.  But apart from that most of the interpreters are unqualified which in itself can often lead to miscarriages of justice.  Interpreting for court purposes is a highly qualified profession not only do they have to be extremely well versed in each of the languages they are to express, but they need to be able to ensure that everything that is said by one party is clearly understood by the other including any nuances and colloquialisms.  To be able to do this takes knowledge, training and skill, there are specific qualifications required and those that undertake it do so under oath.  However at the moment many of those sent by contractors don’t always have these qualifications and often struggle to make themselves understood let alone interpret others.  The spin off effect of this change has been that hundreds of highly qualified interpreters have found themselves without work, and with all that entails. 

Proposed changes to Legal Aid provisions are inevitably going to have a similar effect with thousands of highly qualified professionals put out of work overnight and their work given to poorly qualified people.  Up and down the country barristers and solicitors with families, mortgages and business loans will find themselves out of a job.  Well, I know that lawyers don’t always attract a great deal of sympathy from some of us more modestly qualified people.  We read expressions such ‘fat-cat lawyers’ bandied about by the tabloid press, there are reports of barristers earning £400,000 pounds which may be true but it does not those who work in criminal law.  The average income of a barrister in criminal law (who is self-employed therefore a small business) is in the region of £35,000 out of which they have to pay VAT at 20% , chambers fees at 15-25%, practicing licence fees, professional body fees, pension and in many cases travel costs to courts which can be anywhere in the country.  It costs on average £60,000 to qualify to be a barrister and can take eight years during which time they have to live.  In the light of this their pay might easily be considered too low rather than too high (in comparison a train driver earns around £45,000). 

These two examples of the ridiculous overzealous policies of this government are both within the legal system although there are many, many more.  A fair robust criminal justice system, available to all is a cornerstone of any society wishing to call itself civilised, and the changes I have referred to will in themselves fatally flaw ours.  We do not want justice in our country administered by poorly qualified people; we want innocent people exonerated, guilty people punished and protection from injustice.  With the destruction of the Criminal Bar and solicitors who currently practice in criminal law put out of business, miscarriages of justice will become commonplace.

As can be seen, the victims of this government’s policies though are not only amongst those groups normally considered most vulnerable.  One is driven to conclude that destroying the professions is a deliberate tactic in their overall strategy.

If you want to employ someone to carry out a large difficult yet crucial job for you, say an extension on your house, how do you go about it?  Would you perhaps speak to people who have had done this sort of work before, maybe you might go to see similar works that have been completed elsewhere.  Certainly you would want to see evidence that any people you might consider for the job were competent, honest and reliable.  I doubt you would employ anybody you had used before who had been repeatedly incompetent, someone who had surreptitiously billed you for work they hadn’t done, and definitely not someone who had deliberately defrauded you.  You surely wouldn’t use someone that costs you huge amounts to rectify their mistakes so any savings that might have been made are nullified. 

Nonetheless this is what this government is repeatedly doing with its outsourcing programme.  There are numerous examples court interpreters, offender tagging, prisoner transportation, disability assessments, and police back-office services etcetera.  Some have argued that their ideology is explained that by putting work into the private sector contributes to the country's economy.  Well that may be so, but surely that only works if the companies involved actually pay tax in this country; also if those that are employed by them can earn a reasonable wage.  However, most of these multi-national companies pay very little tax here and some none at all and their employees often earn little more than the minimum wage and/or are on zero-hour contracts.  The actual logic behind large-scale privatisation was once described to me like this.  Hold your hand out to one side level with your shoulder; that represents the service you pay for.  Now hold your hand out to one side at waist level; that represents the service you actually get.  Everything in between is profit.

So if it's not for ideological reasons that the government do it, and it's not to save money it leaves only two possible reasons and they are, complete mind-numbing stupidity or corruption.  From that draw your own conclusions, but these politicians can be accused of a lot of things but not stupidity.

I gather that HM Coastguard and the fire service are now on the wish list for this treatment.  Nothing is sacred, the scale of this government’s aspirations has been made abundantly clear are from a speech made by Oliver Letwin, currently Minister of State in the cabinet office, in 2005 said, “There will be no NHS within five years of a Conservative election victory.”  In a television interview on Sunday George Osborne complimented himself and his party on how well they were doing all the while displaying a smug smile that competed to outshine even that of Ed Balls seated next to him.  He stated that the UK could no longer afford a welfare state, but gave no explanation how that could be true when we could afford to build a railway that nobody wants, and most people can’t use and couldn’t afford to use if they could.  Neither did he explain why the economy can afford to pay six-figure salaries and enormous bonuses to executives of outsourcing companies who do not achieve what they are paid to