You’re passion is commendable but you are clearly not responding to what I actually wrote, so there no point continuing any discussion.

You don’t seem to be interested in discussion, only insulting people who have a different view point from you. I wouldn’t dare presume to what your experience of life is, so I’m not quite sure how you feel able to infer so many things about me and what I do.

I do not know in detail about the specifics of Torbay, but general economic principles are universal.

Perhaps I laid it on a bit thick with respect to the Liberal Party heritage, but that is very important to me. Free trade is a non-negotiable principle, up there with opposition to ID Cards.

This is a quote in response to my blog from one of the victims of this Tory policy:

“Adrian you missed out a key factor - the demoralisation of public sector staff when pay cuts are afoot. The consequences are enormous and have shocked me endlessly in recent months. Economics isn’t just about figures! It’s about real public sector workers getting pay cuts by the tens of thousands and the chaos it creates.

There will be no talented or committed people left in local authorities in a couple of years!!”

Those who defend this policy are the ones insulting people, real people whose jobs could go or whose pay could be cut. Vulnerable people whose services could be withdrawn or made less affordable or unaffordable. Local people, who like you and your neighbours, will lose what little right they presently have to affect decisions through the ballot box.

It is a centralising, privatising, authoritarian policy designed to destroy what little local democracy we have left. It’s origins are Tory, it’s implementation is new Labour, and it’s opposition, in my area at least, is being led by Liberals.

I don’t think just insulting people is really giving weight to your argument.

It is not that outsourcing is intrinsically bad; it is just that outsourcing well, requires a specific set of skills that not all organisations have.

If you want to do it well, like many things, you have to know what you’re doing!! In my experience many organisations, often public sector, do not realise this and frankly make every mistake in the book…if they’d ever bother reading the book on how to outsource in the first place, which many of them have not.

In fact, even when they employ someone like me, who has done it a few times before, they ignore the advice given and then a year later offer to pay another £25k so that I can tell them what I told them a year ago, again, as they still haven’t implemented it…what a wonderful use of tax payers money! (I said no, by the way, I’m busy).

The reason why outsourcing should work in principle is because the outsourcing company is able to garner economies of scale; its staff and managers are more experienced (as a result of being experts in their field); it can level resources more efficiently (depending of course, on what is being outsourced); it can reduce staff turnover (there’s more places for good people to work their way up to)and overheads can also be reduced.

Some of those savings can also be made by exploiting the employment market by paying lower wages and providing fewer benefits - although not from staff TUPE’d over from the old employer - by law their benefits and pensions will be protected. Where the service is not geographically constrained they can use a labour market that is of a better quality and/or cheaper…that is that has a comaprative advantage in providing the service.

The contract has to be good and this is quite a skill; if this is your first time designing and developing an outsourcing contract the chances are you’ll forget all sorts of things and do it poorly…and you will end up paying through the nose and the service will be worse.

In addition rarely is much thought given to the different set of skills required to manange and control an outsourcing contract versus actually delivering the service yourself. It is a complately different job but often the person who used to run the service is left to manange the contract….inevitably they start faffing about with the detail of what they’re no longer responsible for and don’t look at the bigger picture.

Lastly, if like the Tories required you make the only criterion costs then the organisations in competition with each other will strip out value in order to keep the costs down. Decisions on how to source a service should be based on value; if the outsourcing company cannot provide value then the service should be kept in house. This a decision that should be made on a case by case basis.

Outsourcing is not easy, it is often done poorly, but that is the fault of the people outsourcing not of the concept itself.

I am happy to fight against outsourcing if it does not result in value for money. It is the council’s job to provide services at the best value for money - that may be in house or outsourced. If outsourcing in one case provides the same or better service for less then great, I’m all for it. If it produces a worse service and the savings aren’t big enough (which they rarely seem to be) then I’m against it. Simple.

What I object to is Adrian’s economics. Its just plain wrong and I think that needs pointing out - especially with the title to his post.

Unfortunately, he seems to have decided that anyone who dares disagree with him must be an evil Tory who is hell bent on the destruction of Torbay.

The Liberal Party was founded in opposition to such economics. That is what united the Radicals, Whiggs and Peelites into the great force that was then the Liberal Party, the closest successor of which is the Liberal Democrats.

Gladstone became a Liberal over the issue, Winston Churchill defected to the Liberal Party over it. Chamberlain left to join the Tories and started opposing it.

Just because the Tories suggest or do something it doesn’t mean its wrong, and just because something might sound nice or popular it doesn’t mean its liberal.

Thankfully, my skin seems thicker than yours, I will continue to support liberalism and the Liberal Democrats as the main vehicle for that in this country unless the party as a whole rejects its heritage.

There is one simple reason I am not in the Tory party - I am not a conservative.

I sought to point out how wrong your solution was economically.

There are many solutions to economic problems - might I suggest some liberal ones? Freeing up people to pursue their own happiness giving support to those who through no fault of their own cannot afford essential services.
Liberalising regulations would help new businesses start up, it is from these small businesses which most employment comes.
What is the areas best place of comparative advantage? Free people up to exploit that.

Simply trying to keep money in an area makes zero economic sense, unless you’re trying to create an impoverished economy or one which is entirely dependent upon the rest of the world for support. Hardly empowering people is it?

Outsourcing very rarely delivers good value, you are adding profits to the cost of providing, marketing and managing a service, while keeping all the risk of failure.

It’s all very well councils and hospital trusts going for the “best tender”, but in my experience, that is usually the cheapest, and the reason it’s cheapest is because they lied about the level of service provided in order to get the contract.

In theory, the contract should protect against that, but in practice that is never the case - a bad contractor is hard to replace - the good contractors who cost more will be committed to other projects by the time you can work through the legal paperwork, probation, 2nd chances, golden parachutes, etc, leaving you with the choice of bad service and extra costs making up the shortfall of the service or trying to get a new contractor.

I don’t see how choosing to use local skills rather than remote ones is contrary to the spirit of free enterprise, the market is there for councils, businesses or individuals to choose based on their requirements - those requirements can often be related to quality, locality and other non-price elements.