The Guardian's dramatic lead story last week that child protection services might be privatised has caused extreme consternation, writes Martin Narey.
Although Edward Timpson has made it plain that the proposed new powers are not about large-scale privatisation, that has provided only limited assurance to those who are aghast at the possibility that there could be any role for the private sector.
I first heard of the controversy when Guardian journalist Patrick Butler phoned me the day before the story was published. I knew nothing about it. I'd been at the Education Secretary's weekly meeting on children's issues just 48 hours earlier and if there really was a master plan to privatise child protection, I'm pretty sure it would have been mentioned. It wasn't of course because such a plan doesn't exist.
But some of the furore following that initial story, particularly some of the more sanctimonious dismissal of the morality of the private sector - that's 20 million of the UK workforce by the way - prompted me to write this defence, not of privatisation, but of competition and, indirectly, of those who work in the private sector.
I'm opposed to simple privatisation. Taking something from the public sector and determining that public servants must no longer run it is not the best way of ensuring value for money. But while I'm opposed to crude privatisation, I'm an unapologetic fan of competition, not least because I believe that competition allows the public sector the opportunity to demonstrate that it cannot be beaten in terms of value for money.
I was the director general of the Prison Service who opened a number of new prisons, designed, built and run by the private sector. I was also the director general who first exposed current prisons to competition. Consequently, I'm often accused of having been the architect of rampant privatisation.
Just a couple of months ago, the ex-general secretary of the Prison Officers Association was talking about me when he wrote of "the underbelly of prison privatisation" and the "creatures" responsible for it. The reality is somewhat different.
Better services
I introduced competition because I wanted better prisons and, in particular, I wanted prisoners to be treated with decency. If private providers had proven themselves, at that time, to be better at providing decency than the public sector, I would have had no compunction in giving them the work. But competition prompted in the public sector imaginative and cost-effective proposals for running prisons, and with a much greater emphasis on decency and rehabilitation. In the event, I moved not a single prison from the public to the private sector, although I took two from the private sector and effectively nationalised them, much to the disappointment of the then prisons minister Paul Boateng and to the dismay of Anne Widdecombe the shadow home secretary. Quite simply, competition allowed the public sector to demonstrate that, on those occasions, it could offer anything the private sector could offer and at a better price.
It's not always that way. Competitions for two public sector prisons last year resulted in one staying in the public sector and one, Birmingham, transferring to the private sector. But the benefit of competition in each case has been to the public purse and, from my own observations of Birmingham, the improved treatment of prisoners.
I can almost hear the shrieks of dismissal; that prisons and the safeguarding of children are two very different things. And that is so, although prisons house some of the most impoverished, wretched and vulnerable adults and children in the country. The point I'm making is that the private sector, despite the requirement to make profits, is not inevitably without scruple. I've spent all of my life in the public or the voluntary sectors. But I've never agreed with those who claim a moral superiority over private sector organisations and those who work for them.
Driven by profit
I don't think that the garage that services my car, the supermarket where we buy our groceries or my family solicitor are driven solely by profit. And I certainly don't think the newly qualified GP, who last year spotted that I might have cancer, was driven by profit, although he, like the others, works in the private sector.
Do I think that child protection is remotely ready for competition now? No I don't. But that's primarily because of concerns about the competence of both the private and the voluntary sector, and the currently inadequate nature of commissioning. And if it were ever to happen, we would first have to think carefully about which tasks, for presentational and other reasons, would always have to remain within the public sector. But there is, to my mind, no reason why a properly managed private sector organisation - by itself or, more likely, in partnership with a public or voluntary sector provider - could not compete to play a role in child protection. That won't be easy for them. They start with a disadvantage in winning work, precisely because they have to make a return to shareholders. But if they can do that while still offering better value for money, then that says a lot about the efficiency and effectiveness of the public and voluntary sector alternatives.
Some private sector companies act shamefully. Some are exploitative. But there is nothing intrinsically wrong with making a profit. Without the £74bn in company taxes last year, the current programme of public spending cuts would be much more severe. And without decent company profits many of those who have worked hard all their lives, including many in the public or voluntary sector, will have a less comfortable retirement to look forward to. The Local Government Pension Scheme alone has 60 per cent of its funds, some £90bn, invested in shares.
If company profits and shareholder dividends decline, many of us will suffer. In short, the private sector isn't all bad.
Sir Martin Narey advises Education Secretary Michael Gove on children's social care and chairs the Adoption Leadership Board. In the past, he has advised G4S on the care of children and their education in custody
Outsourcing Consultation
The debate surrounding the government's consultation over outsourcing children's social care services sprang to life when a group of academics published a letter warning that, if followed through, the proposals would lead to widespread privatisation of child protection.
This in turn sparked Children England to launch a petition that has attracted more than 10,000 signatures to "keep profit out of child protection".
The consultation closes at the end of May after which final proposals will be drawn up by the government.
