23 May 2003
Leaders of business and public sector workers have exchanged insults over the role of private firms in providing public services.
Confederation of British Industry president Sir John Egan told the organisation's £227-a-head annual dinner on May 20 that 'business is becoming increasingly alarmed by the snail's pace of delivery of public sector reform'.
'From transport to health services to local government, we are not getting [enough] bang for our hard-earned bucks,' Egan complained. 'Union leaders may have appointed themselves the champions of the public services, but it is not helpful for them to suggest that services to the tax-paying consumer are only safe with them.'
He said that resistance to change by some unions could 'not protect the services they claim to cherish, but contribute directly to their decline'.
These remarks drew an angry reaction from Unison general secretary Dave Prentis. 'We have had 20 years' experience of the private sector running our public services. What did they deliver, except dirty hospitals?' he asked.
'The only thing the CBI has attempted to do is protect unscrupulous private companies – reducing the pay, conditions and pensions of low-paid public sector workers to make vast profits for their directors.'
The Treasury also disputed the CBI's claim that the public sector cannot spend money efficiently, and that government departments had not spent £7.5bn earmarked for frontline services.
'That's the difference between what was spent and the maximum departments were entitled to spend. But nowadays with budgets over three years they can carry over money. There could be 101 reasons why money is not spent in a particular year,' a spokesman said.
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