5 reasons why privatisation is bad for you

1. YOUR SERVICES GET WORSE

Private companies do not have a social purpose, their legal priority is making a profit for shareholders, not putting people first. This means they may end up cutting corners, or under investing in our services. They have a duty to make as much money as they can. Water companies ignore leaks instead of investing in infrastructure, while private company involvement in the NHS has been bad for patients. Private companies also have 'commercially sensitive' contracts, so they don't share information with others; this makes it harder for them to work in partnership to provide an integrated service.

2. YOUR COSTS GO UP

You pay more, both as a taxpayer and directly when you pay for public services. Value for money goes down because private companies must make a profit for their shareholders and they also pay their top executives more money. This means either we the people, or the government, or both, end up paying more than they did before. Fares on our privatised railways and buses are the most expensive in Europe, while people are also being hit with high energy prices.

3. YOU CAN'T HOLD PRIVATE COMPANIES ACCOUNTABLE

If the local council runs a service, you know where to go to complain. But if a private company runs a service, they are not democratically accountable to you. That makes it harder for you to have a voice. Academy schools are less accountable to parents. Atos, the welfare provider, tried to silence disability campaigners instead of responding to their concerns.

4. STAFF ARE UNDERMINED

If you work in public services, privatisation will make your life harder. A Europe-wide study found that privatisation has had ‘largely negative effects on employment and working conditions’. There are often job cuts and qualified staff are replaced with casual workers, who are paid less and have worse conditions. This has a knock-on effect on the service being provided – for example, in the cases of care workers or court interpreters.

5. IT'S DIFFICULT TO REVERSE

Once our public services are privatised, it's often difficult for us to get them back. Not only that, we lose the pool of knowledge, skills and experience that public sector workers have acquired over many years. We also lose integration across different services (private companies often don't share information because it's 'commercially confidential').

BUT WAIT!

Aren’t private companies supposed to be better than the public sector? Doesn’t competition reduce costs and improve quality and customer care? No, because there is often very little competition; public services tend to be natural monopolies so there isn't much choice for consumers. Instead, government (local or national) asks private companies to bid for contracts running our services - but there's no real opportunity for our voices to be heard.