Competition killed the cat
Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic On Friday 25th October, Serco announced that its Chief Executive, Chris Hyman, had fallen on his sword. Earlier that week, the CEO of G4S in the UK departed. A...
View ArticleGrayling’s secret revolution
Chris Grayling, the UK’s Secretary of State for Justice and “Tory attack dog”, is about to do what Thatcher and successive Prime Ministers (of all persuasions) were unable to achieve – throw the public...
View ArticleThe Serco smoke screen
We must be careful that the corporate failures of the big outsourcers in the UK, such as Serco and G4S, do not become a smoke screen behind which failures of the commissioners are forgotten. Media...
View ArticleMisguided or misleading?
The Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, rightly praises the achievements of the Peterborough and Doncaster pilots for their impact on reoffending rates. But is his suggestion that the national...
View ArticlePublic open markets are private closed shops
Is a Social Serco possible? Challenging the public sector monopoly on some public services has the potential to deliver better social impact. However, the difficulty in opening a public sector market...
View ArticleNo worries mate! (As long as you don’t want to eat)
If people in the UK think the government aren’t tough enough on unemployed benefit claimants, they should look to Australia for ideas. But they should be very careful what they wish for. There is a...
View ArticleDos and Don’ts from Down Under
In the late nineties, as Blair and co were rolling out the New Deals and experimenting with contestability at the edges of Jobcentre Plus, the Australians were outsourcing their Commonwealth Employment...
View ArticleNine cheap warehouses
Michael Gove, Justice Secretary, has announced his intention to build nine new prisons. These will be much needed replacements for some of the old, crumbling prison estate. However, there are important...
View ArticleThink of the children
When the state intervenes in the UK and takes a child into its care, it surely does so with all the best intentions. The intervention is instigated in response to and governed by strict rules on child...
View ArticleThey made their bed
The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) have just commenced buying the new Work and Health Programme. This will replace the existing Work Programme, which has run since the coalition government...
View ArticleIncendiary Procurement
Whatever the enquiry finds, it is without doubt that Grenfell Tower went up like a dry stick because its refurbishment was procured at least in part on the basis of price. If the same fire had started...
View ArticleThe Kabul model
The Ministry of Labour Social Affairs Martyrs & Disabled (MoLSAMD) in Afghanistan (the equivalent of DWP in the UK or DEEWR in Australia), with technical assistance from the World Bank, are about...
View ArticleRight Grayling, wrong crime
The UK parliament’s Justice Select Committee has finally confirmed what we predicted in our blogs and advised the Committee as early as 2013. The so-called ‘rehabilitation revolution’, or contracting...
View ArticleReducing unemployment – a simple blueprint
The UK’s Chancellor is forecasting unemployment will reach double digits (up from under 4% in March 2020), but what are his plans for reversing this social and economic catastrophe? Once we emerge from...
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