We tried to tell them; they refused to listen

[flamingfingers]

Decades of outsourcing services raised, not cut, municipal costs: study

Two decades ago, a major report touted the benefits of municipalities privatizing services. But 19 years later, a new study suggests, many are having regrets.

By: David P. Ball Metro Published on Tue Sep 20 2016
Gaëtan Royer remembers how he felt as complaints poured in from Port Moody residents every garbage day: “ashamed and powerless.”

As the B.C. city’s manager from 2000 until 2011, when he became Chief Planner for Metro Vancouver, he saw first-hand the effect of a decade-old decision to contract out Port Moody’s waste services to a private company — ostensibly to save taxpayers money.

In Port Moody’s case, he said, not only were many residents not getting their waste picked up properly; his attempts to improve recycling and to launch a composting program were stymied by the contract unless they coughed up more money.
“There was no flexibility to do that, not with the way the contract had been written,” he said.

So when the contract expired, the Lower Mainland city brought garbage back under civic delivery under his watch. And instead of seeing costs explode from having unionized, pensioned employees pick up the trash, the opposite occurred.

The new study looked back at 13 case studies contained in a 1997 report for Canada’s Intergovernmental Committee on Urban and Regional Research, which concluded outsourcing services was a way “to respond to increased costs.”
Nineteen years later, in fact 40 per cent of those cities’ previously contracted-out services had been brought fully back “in-house,” Royer found.

According to the Columbia Institute’s executive director, Charley Beresford, the report should give pause to governments hoping to save a buck through privatization. Vancouver recently announced it was out-sourcing recycling collection to an industry-operated not-for-profit company, for example. While each contract is unique, that’s the opposite direction from the trend.

“The main reason services are coming back in-house is because it costs less, which is the opposite of what we’re told,” she told Metro in a phone interview. “There’s been this prevalent dialogue in the mainstream media about public services — there’s been a push toward efficiency in public services being greater if they’re not being delivered by public employees. That turns out to be wrong.”

http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/ ... study.html

[Smurf]

Does this surprise anyone???????

[flamingfingers]

Does this surprise anyone???????

By the (surprising) lack of opposing responses, I guess not.

[flamingfingers]

Like London and Paris, Sooke BC Is Voting Privatization Out of Style

Why municipal governments around the world are bringing services back in house.
By Keith Reynolds, Gaetan Royer and Charley Beresford Yesterday | TheTyee.ca
Keith Reynolds, Gaetan Royer and Charley Beresford are the authors of Back in House: Why Local Governments are Bringing Services Home. Back in House is a Columbia Institute report.

Sooke, BC is far from being the only community in Canada that decided to ask their own employees to do work that had previously been contracted out. City worker photo, Creative Commons licensed.
What does Sooke, British Columbia have in common with London, England; Paris, France; and Hamburg, Germany? All four local governments are bringing work back in house that had previously been contracted out to private companies or privatized altogether.

In B.C. alone there are a number of other communities that have moved in the same direction. Cranbrook was one of the first communities to end a public private partnership when it took back control of a recreation complex. White Rock voted to buy its water system back from a private company. Even BC Hydro has said it is reducing its contracting-out work by $20 million.

Today many local governments in Canada are finding that the alternative for service delivery that can save money, provide better service and provide more transparent operations is the in-house alternative.

http://www.thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/09/2 ... ation-Out/

[kgcayenne]

Surprise, surprise. Private companies with fat-walleted CEOs that underpay employees who, in turn, provide inadequate service. Who'd'a thunk it, eh?

[Smurf]

Things are going against privatization more and more every day. The IPP's with Hydro are a perfect example. They are a disaster as I predicted they would be right off the bat. Hopefully we'll wake up and go back to a proper Dept of Highways. I also believe we should take over the ferries again.

[flamingfingers]

Hospital cleaning, food services and laundry as well!!

[TylerM4]

it's been generally recognized for about a decade now(through long term peer reviewed stuidies) that privatization of services is almost always a poor decision.

This is what happens when you have politicians running our services. They make decisions based on "politics" rather than for the good of the people.

Let's take healthcare for example. Province of BC has been privatizing services like crazy. Whether that's by using flat-out privatization or by going with these "P3" projects. Even the politicians know it's not a good move. However, it makes them look good. Why? It's because they're trying to fool us all with a shill game. They've got a mandate of "Controlling Healthcare Spending". One of the ways they're "controlling" that spending it to seperate these services out of the healthcare budget. AKA, instead of giving a hospital money for cleaning services they contract out under the guise of "provincial services" and boom - no so much money being spent on healthcare. They're spending MORE money overall, but they get to wave their reports around and say "Look, we've been successful with controlling healthcare spending. Vote for us again!".

[rookie314]

Surprise, surprise. Private companies with fat-walleted CEOs that underpay employees who, in turn, provide inadequate service. Who'd'a thunk it, eh?

The one percent won. Unions are pure evil they said, your getting screwed by the unions. And now the one percent sit on huge piles of cash and laugh their hind ends off.