The recent news that G4S were unable to deliver on what they promised when they got the Olympic security contract should remind us of the cases where privatisation has failed to deliver a good service.
These cases are far more frequent than free-market ideologues would have us believe. This article from Seumas Milne reminds us of the scandals concerning A4E (who had contracts under the government’s welfare-to-work programme), and the problems with private water companies and private railway companies as well as with the Private Finance Initiative that is used to finance the building of new infrastructure. It is time to move away from outsourcing and towards ‘insourcing’.