The announcement yesterday that the Government is planning to sell off and privatise even more state functions is a very poor move, and a return to the desperate situation of the 1970's. When will Governments learn that to privatise everything is not in the public interest? It simply leads to the newly created private businesses looking for cost-cutting efficiencies and more ways to make profit. More often than not, it leads to cutting staff and more work for the staff that remain, with the much sought-after effiency gains hardly ever realised. This is highly likely to effect the standard of work offered and means the service standards offered are likely to decline, often in return for higher prices - as we have seen on the railway in Britain today.
However, the real implications are for those left to work in these new privatised roles. Turning a service over to the private sector means that any unnecessary services will be cut, and the pressure will be increased on staff to take on more work from those staff cut back. This will lead to higher stress levels among the employed, and will impact on their happiness levels in their daily life. Privatising anything is only ever done with one aim - to make profit, and this is something that many Government services in place should not be about. Of course, there are services that are unnecessary, inefficiently run and need overhaul. However, privatisation is not the answer - this is just an easy way for the Government to absolve it's responsibility instead of routing out the source of the problem.
What needs to be done is for the Government, perhaps in collaboration with external parties, to conduct an overhaul of it's system, invest in better training for people and look where it is wasting money - one of these is the Department for work and pensions, as has tragicomically been seen in the new TV sitcom The Job Lot. Only then will people feel happier and better able to carry out their roles.
No comments:
Post a Comment