G4S got a good inspection report there a while ago but sounds like the wheels must have come off. Maybe cuts mean they can't make any money.RogerOThornhill wrote:Well.
I'd love one of the frothing free market loons who push outsourcing at every opportunity as the prefect solution, and the "public sector reform" New Labour types who went along with it, to defend this now.BBC Breaking News Verified account
@BBCBreaking
"Scale" of disturbance at HMP Birmingham leads firm G4S to hand over "operational responsibility" to Prison Service
In fairness to New Labour, they never handed an existing prison over to a private operator. As with PFI in the NHS, privatisation in prisons was a lot to do with concerns that construction costs in the public sector were too high. And if the people who constructed it also ran it, they'd have all the more incentive to do it all efficiently.
Some logic in terms in that, perhaps, in terms of the facilities management. But the Prison Service could and should have done the proper prison stuff. The surgeons in PFI hospitals don't work for the PFI people.