In July 2013 – before the privatisation of Royal Mail took place, I wrote a blog about the process and discussed why it was a bad idea and briefly, what the implications would most likely be for the future of the universal delivery service.

Sadly, the news today that the privatised Company has experienced a £74 Million fall in profits and that it is already pointing the finger of blame at competition in profitable areas comes as little surprise.

We will no doubt soon experience further questions over the viability of rural and unprofitable delivery routes.

Whether the Government likes it or not, the reality of surrendering public ownership of a service which was created to ensure parity of service for all in the way that only a not-for-profit operation can do so, is soon going to bite.

It is simply impossible for Government to dictate the operational structure of a private business when profit is at risk – unless they choose to subsidise the service. If that happens, the question will surely yet again be why did they dispose of Royal Mail in the first place?

Whatever our politicians may think, privatisation of services which are there for the benefit of everyone is never a good idea; however hard to run; however much they cost; however much can be earned from their sale.

These services are essential to deliver a basic standard of living for all, which Government is currently failing to do by not dealing with the profit-led management policies of all the privatised services which the public once owned. What is more, it is set to continue compounding the problem by having so recently disposed of Royal Mail and by taking very big steps in the direction of privatisation of the NHS through the Commissioning Process.

It stands to reason that the managers of privately owned firms are going to focus on the practices and methods of working which deliver a good bottom line.

Whereas Government and Social Enterprise will be very happy if they are simply covering their costs, private owners simply don’t get up each day and think about how they can remove all their profits from one area of their business to subsidise the services they offer in another – when they cost them money to do so.

Sooner or later, someone – certainly not this Government – is going to have to begin picking up the pieces from what has been the serial offloading of a whole range of public services which once gave all British people unhindered access to the tools of a modern life which were once the envy of all.

The Country may already be secretly bankrupt. But selling up everything that we own is not the answer.

Top to bottom reform is now inevitable. It’s just a question of when; not if – and what the cost will be to us all whilst we wait for the leadership of politicians who are big enough to get all of the jobs done in the best interests of everyone and not just themselves.

 

image: europeanceo.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have so much news available to us now that it has become very easy to miss the stories which may fail to catch the public eye.

Away from the headlines today, some of our news sources have been covering the growing row between US President Barrack Obama and the Industry Leaders controlling the supply of Broadband Services in the United States.

Obama appears to be pushing for a system of regulation which will ensure the same level of supply across the Net to all customers, whilst the Industry itself is apparently looking for its own kind of controls which will allow differing levels of supply – and ultimately a ‘fast lane’ or optimum service for those to be made available for those who will pay for it.

On the face of it, this could immediately sound like something and nothing. We do after all have a whole range of choices when we buy or arrange our own internet packages and right now, it seems pretty normal to pay for every little thing that we have.

However, whilst the speed of the roll-out of superfast broadband leaves many of us knowing only too well that different levels of service currently exist and seem to leave us with little choice, this is in itself just an evolutionary or developmental stage of provision. It is much like the experience of the switch from analogue to digital has been for those of us who used the Web from the beginning, and can still remember the rattle and hum of the tones as we hogged the phone line and dialed-in.

We may not like it and in an age where we have been conditioned to expect everything at the touch of a button, slow internet is beyond frustrating. But right now, we are accepting of it, as we are culturally acclimatised to accept that there is a direction of travel at work, which will only see services improve. (Yes, 4G apparently will at some point exist, even if you have already been paying for it for many months…).

But what would it mean to you if the next generations of technology were simply kept from you, when you knew that they existed and other people or businesses had ready access to them?

Your immediate thought might be that you are pretty happy with your iphone 6, or perhaps a Galaxy Smartphone, and that will do you just fine. But technology is moving apace, and if you were to work on the basis of Moore’s Law, which indicates that the speed and capacity of technology doubles approximately every 18 months to 2 years – which affects functionality as well as speed, you can soon begin to imagine what you might be missing out on by the time you are thinking about the phone you will be able to buy AND operate fully in the year 2020. Apply this to the services you receive through broadband too, and there is perhaps no need to say anymore.

The speed of communication through information technology mediums has been and remains a game changer which has impacts upon us all, usually in ways that leave us feeling completely untouched.

However, it is this very speed, and the capacity to move significant amounts of data from one location to another – perhaps even across the world, in timescales that as humans we at present still remain cognizant of, which have for example equipped money markets and traders to create industries within industries which literally create money from nothing as stocks and shares change hands with the potential to do so again and again over the course of a minute, whilst speculators also ‘bet’ on the transactions and the way their vales will go over the same period of time.

Speed – and therefore time, is increasingly becoming worth money where communication is concerned.

Whilst this may not be a thought that drags many of us away from our phones and iplayer-streamed episodes of The Big Bang Theory today, it will surely stand to reason that those who supply much faster internet services will see the opportunity in being able to charge a considerable premium for the product they supply tomorrow; whilst those who have the most to gain from the almost guaranteed technological leaps that are coming, will already possess and indeed have the most to gain financially from paying what will to them be trivial sums.

Not a problem for many of us today. But if the supply of service did really become as diverse as it could, there is no reason to believe that like in many other areas of contemporary life, cost will not quickly price large numbers of people out of the latest technology marketplace, with repercussions that could easily lead to the imposition of a whole tier of barriers to entry to services, apps and anything else which has then become entwined with the internet age.

Look at the behavior of the Industry in the States, and it will suddenly become very clear why our own providers could be so resistant to Government led regulation, and the imposition of a level playing field which will never have the potential for the same levels of profitability as that of the alternative.

Regulation that ensures a basic level of service for all and which is not itself qualified by a premium is essential. It can only be offered by an impartial third-party organisation – ideally good government – which has no financial interest in the services provided.

Government is today painted as the bad guy for any industry that provides either a public-wide service, or one which can ultimately have that same effect on the population and is not currently regulated – or guided with a robust ethical code that prioritises access and consideration of the consequences of profit-making actions upon us all.

This applies to the inappropriately named utility companies; companies such as the telecom providers, and also to the companies within the financial and banking sectors, where perhaps the most clear example of what happens when the fee-earners are left to regulate themselves was demonstrated by the financial crash of 2008.

The relevance of the US example should not be lost on us, just as the importance and argument that now definitely exists for greater Government intervention to regulate what are and remain public services.

The core reasoning of keeping essential services in the public domain was lost to decision makers of that time, through prolonged periods of low productivity and the high cost of running industry sized monoliths which were inherently resistant to change.

Regrettably, the long-term gift of what are effectively now monopolies to the money markets was not considered in terms of the requirements of ethical or regulatory practice, and the escalating costs of heating and electricity are just a symptom of what happens when a service is provided to a captive market by companies that are allowed to focus on nothing but the bottom line.

Sooner or later, Government will have to address these issues which face and surround all of the public services which are now in public hands.

Ed Millliband has to date probably been the most outspoken of the Political leaders in acknowledging the need to tackle the impact of unbridled energy price rises. But as with almost everything else, inflicting price changes, freezes or any kind of formula without regard to the real implications of doing so is akin to madness – and certainly so if the Industries themselves are not given adequate opportunity to reform before doing so.

Existing problems will be very complex to address. But for services such as the NHS it is not too late for politicians to do the big thing and tackle the problems that exist with meaningful reform. With Internet Services, it is in no way too late to ensure that the market continues to serve the best interests of everyone, and not just the few who will otherwise stand to make the most money from manipulating its harnessed profitability to their best advantage.

There is much for Government to do. But before anything there must be a change of mindset to one that genuinely considers the impact of polices on other polices and ultimately upon the consequences for us all.

The Internet will only come close to achieving all that it can for good if access to it is essentially the same for all.

Government will need to address this, just as it will soon have to accept that the parallel world which the Net has created will require its very own set of rules.

The distance which the Internet has created between us is already removing the humanity from relationships. We now need to ensure that our ability to pay is not the system of qualification for improving our lives that we should now be able to take for more than granted.

image: thevoltreport.com

The CBI has today said that Government must create more free childcare, and on the face of it they are certainly right.

But is it only the Government’s responsibility to provide the support mechanisms which enable parents to work when business will be one of the biggest beneficiaries too?

Childcare costs play a much bigger role in the earning potential, wellbeing and general happiness of families with very young children and low incomes than really ever seems to be fully acknowledged. Yet this, and the reality that the period of support and nurture before school for all children is just as important as the years between the ages of 4 and 18 seems to be treated as anything but.

Schemes such as nursery vouchers help, but are in many ways arguably little more than a gimmick for politicians, or a fire-and-forget incentive for some employers. The privately owned monopoly of early years care which currently provides this support to parents is after all significantly profit based, whilst providing services that like schools, are actually required for the benefit of the wider community as a whole.

Like it or not, the days have now long since passed when the average nuclear family could be maintained on one wage alone. The option for one parent to stay at home during the formative years of their young children is a luxury that for many is simply financially impossible. Yet the lack of genuinely affordable quality childcare provision can soon remove any real choice and the likelihood of both or of a single parent prioritising work when there is a real cost in quality of life to the child or children concerned, without any benefit elsewhere – is hardly any choice at all.

From this perspective, what the CBI is saying may well be fundamentally right, and when Government has long since provided free education as the basic right – and indeed requirement for every child, it does seem rather odd that the system so squarely favours the use of private care in the pre-school years.

However, there is a very large ‘but’ to all this.

Whilst business representatives may be correct in identifying a key barrier to entry for people seeking a return to the workplace, is it not very questionable to place the emphasis of responsibility squarely at the door of Government when it is not only the employees, but the businesses themselves which in many cases will ultimately benefit too?

Making the choice easy for parents to return to the workplace after the birth of a child should be a priority for any Government that considers its responsibilities to the people it represents in a wholly balanced and fair way. However, most problems like this have in the past been solved by writing a cheque, and the days when politicians could just solve problems by throwing money at them have long since gone.

To the CBI, the suggested cost of £300 Million might not sound like a great deal. But when you consider that this figure would equate to nearly £700K off the budget of every single principle Local Authority in the UK – and then give thought to what that would then mean in the terms of cuts to services that such a figure would in a shifting of priorities bring, you can quickly see how a sum of this kind could hardly come without any significant strings, wherever the money comes from.

Somebody somewhere is always losing out. Government doesn’t have the money to provide the services that it already does, and whilst borrowing sounds like a very attractive idea to politicians who are buried in the complexities of what will probably have been one of the longest General Election campaigns in history, it is the result of this approach time and again before, that sees the current UK debt at beyond £1 Trillion and accumulating at a rate of over £5K per second.

We do need either local authorities and social enterprise to provide a quality alternative to privately owned and operated nurseries. Especially so for parents working for small businesses or who are self employed themselves.

Like an increasing number of different areas within local government which are moving towards entrepreneurial projects in order to maintain existing services and potentially attract funds to support others, Education Authorities could, and arguably should be developing services such as day nurseries and crèche’s which charge fees, but keep the fee levels real and in keeping with what is affordable for those parents working in low paid jobs.

But for others, who experience these difficulties just the same, but work for much larger, perhaps corporate level companies, their employers have a role to play too. Bigger companies could arguably provide these services at a much lower cost than a third party organisation or independent not-for-profit organisation could ever do so, whilst providing on-site services that for many of the employees concerned could take their work experience into an entirely different league.

Yes, some employers do already offer such services on-site. But the benefits of offering on site nurseries and crèches within all businesses where it would be possible to do so could be untold; run completely at cost, and also potentially opened up to support other parents from the communities which surround large employment sites – where outreach could almost certainly always be improved.

Looking to others for the answer has regrettably become an all too familiar approach within a culture that inherently considers little more than profit, risk and the potential for blame.

So when it comes to the benefit that will no doubt come from the profitability of getting so many more of these parents back into work, the employers themselves should also have to pick up and carry more of the risks involved in providing the solutions that will make it attractive for parents to be happy to do so.

Government can and should do a whole lot more to support business growth and therefore increase the number of jobs available and the earning ability of the people within them. But business leaders also need to accept that they have a role to play in helping to support the lives of those they employ beyond work, and also recognise that there might be very positive results accepting that the two are not always mutually exclusive.

image: The Guardian

 

Labour plans for a Senate to replace the House of Lords and the Conservative gift of a Directly Elected Mayor for Greater Manchester may outwardly look like serious attempts by the political elite to demonstrate how seriously they wish to reengage with the electorate. But do we really need even more elected politicians, when most of those in the system that we already have are not in touch with the people that they have the responsibility to represent?

Reform of the House of Lords is itself hardly original news. Whilst there are significant questions to be answered about the concept of hereditary peerages when it comes to the attribution of power and responsibility, adding yet another layer of what would essentially be no better, is not going to help anyone, when all that people need is for the political classes that are already in power, is to stop thinking about themselves; finally start to listen to the voters who elected them, and then start acting upon what they have heard.

As seems to have become the tragic and regrettable norm with many politicians, the messages that continue to come from the ascendency of UKIP; from the Scottish Independence Referendum, and from voter disquiet in general are at best – quite literally being missed.

The establishment-shaking popularity of UKIP portrays the current feelings of desperation from up and down the Country, of a population which longs for its political representatives to speak with voices that sound like their own. A genuine desire and practical need for a government that makes us all feel like we are ‘in it together’, rather than being patronised and simply told that we already are. It says very little for the idea of respect when it comes to the status quo.

The Scottish Referendum demonstrated to us in basic terms how the population of just one area of the UK so desperately wants to feel engaged with politicians in a way which leaves the decisions that matter in day-to-day life, in the hands of decision makers who are not only geographically local, but are both seen and felt to be in touch with the needs of the people whom their decisions will ultimately effect.

Scotland’s great advantage in making its voice heard has been the geographical boundary and demographic history which as an identifiable group, has allowed it to become as tribal as the political parties are in Westminster. However, the realities of what our fellow countrymen and women living in Scotland want from British politics is no different to people living in any other area of the UK. We want politicians and leaders who really do put what is best for all before anything else.

Voter disquiet and apathy will not be solved by developing or strengthening a political apparatus that is already perceived by the silent majority, as being rotten from the bottom to the top.

People are not stupid. They know that today’s political system exists to keep the same kinds of people in power – many of whom have no real idea how the people they were elected to serve actually live and survive.

As is the case with the NHS, it is neither the concept nor the physical structure of the institution that is broken.

It is the impractical ideologies, the self-serving motivations and the elect-me-focused policies borne of the people that lead from within the political system that are at fault and fail to serve with objectivity and balance. Misinformed and misguided concepts and ideas that are used to manage and maintain; not for the better interests of the people that the services and systems of government exist to serve; but to prioritise the interests of the people who benefit most from being ‘within’ them.

The five tiers of Government that already exist were not created by accident. The tools are in place to make all the changes which we need, without creating ever more ‘jobs for the boys’, or by installing yet more ways to take power even further away from the very people who want it back the most.

Whether it’s a Parish, Town, Borough, District, County or Unitary Authority that represents us where we live, the only way that people will become interested, supportive and reengaged en-masse, will be when power is returned from Westminster and Brussels, and decisions which always should be made locally, are made locally.

Politicians can come up with as many inadvertently deceitful devices as they like and roll them out through a media which flourishes on the idiocy of it all. But if they really want people to start respecting them again, they are the ones who will have to start respecting the people who elected them first.

 

image: quotespoem.com