Stuart Cosgrove: Tories have exposed myth of public sector uselessness

Superficially, it aimed to uncover ­inefficient working systems in an ­important public agency and inevitably found what it was looking for, the way newspaper ­investigations often do.

The feature lambasted the DVLA ­calling it a “disgrace” and insisted that ­Transport Secretary Grant Shapps carry out a swift ­review of its functions and take action to ­address a “culture of indolence, ­indifference and apathy.”

The investigation offered up one ­de rigueur example of indolence, a home-worker who complained that answering email got in the way of his Netflix binging.

The Times investigation began from a reasonable starting point that: “A ­driving licence is essential to the livelihood of ­millions. The present blockage is a shameful and unnecessary hold-up to all ­attempts to recover from the pandemic,” and ­demanded. “It must be resolved now”.

So far, so predictable. These ­undercover operations are commonplace within ­consumer affairs journalism. Many are justifiable, a few are illuminating but too many are simply the grumblings of the week purporting to be brave journalism.

Often, they come as a by-product of a “fishing expedition” where a young ­freelance worker is sent into a call ­centre or a local council office to explore ­malpractice, and guess what, they usually find something, the worker who surfs the web in the toilet, the manager who picks his nose or the supervisor with a sexist turn of phrase.

By Monday last, the Times ­columnist Clare Foges had piled on, offering a ­damning indictment of wider public ­ownership in a column headlined: ­“Public sector is far too tolerant of mediocrity.”

The Times had not strayed far from a deeply ingrained editorial belief that the free market is best.

Notwithstanding recent displays of ­supporter for NHS workers in the first phase of the Covid pandemic, the public sector is routinely portrayed as a ­basket case, desperately in need of the slick machinations of the free market.

But look under bonnet and it’s often a quite different story. Since the break-up and privatisation of British Rail between 1994 and 1997, the average price of a train journey has increased by 23.5% in real terms and train rolling stock is on ­average older than it was in 1996, whist train-leasing companies drain millions out of the system.

Much as the right-of-centre press bang on about the failures of the public sector repeated surveys suggest up to 64% of the public want the railways to be back in public ownership.

Even stripping out the smoky nostalgia that clings to rail travel, public ownership is by far the most preferred ownership ­option. According to the independent global media organisation, ­openDemocracy, the country would save £1bn a year, enough to fund an 18% cut in rail fares and pay for 100 miles of new ­railway track.

The substantial wastage is not down to skiving signalmen nor the women in the ticket office watching Outlander, it’s the money that escapes to shareholder ­profits, fragmentation, and the higher cost of ­borrowing in the private sector.

What is rarely conceded is that the data rarely backs up these prejudicial ­hunches about public service industries. The ­communications regulator Ofcom ­regularly publishes reports on ­consumer experience and unlike The Times’s ­fishing expeditions are stacked with facts and low on opinion.

You will not be surprised to learn that among the worst performers in the ­communications industry are ­privately owned companies, the ones’ that ­benefitted from open tender.

Because we use them routinely, ­mobile phones now attract more ­complaints than most other products and ­services. ­Vodafone often tops the consumer ­complaints league, a recent Ofcom ­survey revealed that 26 complaints were ­upheld per 100,000 customers in the third ­quarter of last year, ahead of Plusnet on 23 and Virgin on 20.

Half of Vodafone’s complaints related to faults, service, and provisioning issues. The other big ­drivers of complaints to the firm were how it ­handled complaints (20%) and issues over switching provider (15%).

There is a deep irony in Vodafone’s poor showing, in that it has substantial private equity investment and is exposed to global capital, being in part owned by the Government of India (35.8%).

Periodically, a privately owned ­company performs so woefully that it becomes an everyday byword for either greed or incompetence. Despite the ­widespread media contempt for public bodies it is actually privately owned and supposedly entrepreneurial companies that are often the punchline.

Good examples are Ryanair, where charges are added for every small comfort and Hermes in the delivery industry, where customers fear their new trainers have been thrown over a wall in Wolverhampton.

INTERESTINGLY, these “bad apple” companies are named and shamed but the underlying system of low-cost capitalism and shoddy customer service is the preferred system of the current government.

During the economic crises that ­engulfed business during Covid some of the darlings of the Tory Party witnessed a collapse in their share price. The retail landlord company Hammerson lost 70% of its value and there was a haemorrhage of value among travel and leisure operators. Although it would be callous to lay the blame at the commercial sector’s door, we are frequently told that they are more nimble than the public sector. We now know that means having Chris Grayling’s mobile number to offer him substandard medical bibs.

The Conservatives have a blind spot for the serial failings of private enterprise, and their pals in the CBI and free-market pressure groups are hardwired to bristle at employment law and workers’ rights.

We should never forget that Brexit was not simply about “taking back ­control” and returning to some prelapsarian ­England, it was about escaping from the EU’s labour laws and the wealth transparency that Brussels was insisting on.

With Scotland’s political future hinging on constitutional change, we can be easily seduced into the belief that the Conservatives are by-and-large a Unionist party, thus underplaying the deep free-market instincts that lurk at their heart.

Only last week we were treated to one of the great employment hypocrisies of our time. P&O ferries engaged in a ­cruelly contrived fire and re-hire scheme which made widespread redundancies, and then employed replacement staff on worse conditions. Some 800 crew ­members were told they were surplus to requirements and being let go with ­immediate effect, only to be replaced with agency workers.

Shapps, the modern personification of ineffectiveness sent a virtue signally tweet to the CEO of P&O chastising the ­company, such was its power and ­relevance it was sent to the wrong guy, someone who had retired many moons ago.

In a brilliantly crafted critique of P&O the Liverpool writer Frank Cottrell Boyce, described a picket-line protest at Dover, in which he flamed the Tory MP for Dover, Natalie Elphicke, who “went down to the port to protest. Like your neighbourhood arsonist offering you a flask of tea over the smoking ruins of your house”.

Elphicke’s visit was empty showboating. She was met with shouts of “shame on you” from the sacked workers at least some of whom knew she had previously abstained rather than backing a Labour-led bill that would outlaw the hire-and-fire policies that P&O had deployed.

The Tories lined up like sheep to vote against workers’ rights. They always have done and they always will.