By Billy Mitchell

One reason for me wanting to see some measure of legislative power returned to Northern Ireland was the naïve belief that local politicians would be more in tune with the needs of our people than Westminster-based ministers.

One issue, which I fully expected local ministers and assembly members to tackle, is the trend towards the privatisation of public services. At a time when public service workers and their union representatives are intensifying their nation-wide campaign against privatisation, it is disheartening to learn that ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive have decided to embrace New Labour’s programme of PFI (Private Finance Initiative) or "privatisation-by-stealth."

Three of the ministers who make some profession of socialism – Sean Farren, Martin Mc Guinness and Báirbre de Brún – have committed their departments to the principle of PFI, and the lack of criticism from their unionist ministerial colleagues and members of the departmental scrutiny committees suggests that there is widespread support at Stormont for Tory Blair’s policy of creeping privatisation.

Elected representatives are supposed to represent the needs and wishes of the people. Yet the voice of the people in relation to public services is clearly against privatisation. A recent MORI poll commissioned by UNISON has found that 77% of people believe that public services should not be run for profit. Of that number 66% stated that public services should be run by the government or by local authorities rather than by private companies.

The publicly expressed wishes of the people in relation to public services are falling on deaf ears within the new Executive and it appears that the interests of the people are as irrelevant now under the new Executive as they ever were under the old Stormont regime. Cries about democracy and social justice ring hollow in the mouths of those who have become apologists for greedy private sector interests.

We would do well to examine recent reports, which express serious concerns about the quality of work provided by the private sector under PFI in England and Scotland. An article in the British Medical Journal notes that "the private finance initiative poses a major threat to the ability of the NHS to provide the sort of comprehensive care that the people of the United Kingdom expect". Hospitals built under PFI are generally much smaller than the old public funded ones, creating additional demands for primary care services. They are generally more expensive, leaving the Trusts with less money to pay for nurses and doctors.

PFI funded services are also creating a two-tier workforce. One set of staff are transferred to new private sector employers on their existing terms and conditions while other staff already working for that company, or new staff taken on after the contract begins, are on inferior pay and conditions, mostly without a pension scheme.

Our ministers must listen to the voices of those who have examined PFI initiatives and found them to be wanting. They must also listen to the voice of the trade unions and to the real life experiences of both workers and consumers.

When Anne Picking of UNISON accuses PFI of mortgaging the future of the Health Service, our politicians need to listen. When union representatives claim that under PFI health workers are "being bought and sold as if in a cattle market into private companies", our politicians need to listen. When Mick Graham of the GMB tells us that the supposed ‘efficiency’ of PFI run services comes "at the expense of staff pay and conditions", our politicians need to listen. When Andy Gilchrist, general secretary of the Fire Brigade’s Union, criticises PFI for cost cutting measures that compromise safety, our politician's needs to listen.

The people of Northern Ireland deserve the very best public services. These services must be of the highest quality possible. They must be accessible to those who need them most and they must be responsive to those wishing to use them. More importantly, they must be delivered by well-paid, well trained and highly motivated staff.

Such services cannot be delivered under the Private Finance Initiative. PFI is increasingly being shown to be one of the most serious threats to publicly funded and efficiently run services. To suggest that PFI will solve the problems facing our health and education services is, to use the words of Allyson Pollock and Neil Vickers of University College London, ‘private pie in the sky. 

PFI just doesn’t pay.