[ssf] Privatisation: "Pity the Little Goldmines..."

Dan dan at aktivix.org
Fri Jan 28 12:37:45 GMT 2005


Hi,

Sorry to keep on spamming the list with Guardian articles!  (I've 
included this one on the UK list, because there *MUST* be some kind of 
joint work to be done here... see end of article talk for some thoughts...)

This article by Polly Toynbee -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1400386,00.html

- outlines the profits being made by 'looking after' vulnerable children. 

"Who would have thought that there was a fortune to be made out of the 
children no one else wants - the most vulnerable, the most difficult, 
the ones at greatest risk of ending up homeless, in jail or mental 
hospital? But it seems the children looked after by the state - well 
over 60,000 of the little goldmines - are attracting the interest of the 
investment brokers.

"No words describe this opportunity better than the prospectus and 
accompanying report on Valley Care mailed out by the Catalyst Investment 
Group for those interested in new ventures. Note the curious political 
language: "Valley feeds off the inexorable growth in government spending 
on health and social services."

Profits are predicted to be a clear £100,000 per house.  The money being 
put in for each child is somewhere between £3000 and £6,500 a year.

This is a very powerful piece of writing:

"What could that money buy? The lowest figure for a looked-after child - 
£3,000 a week or £156,000 a year - would buy a place at Eton eight times 
over. Or a place at Eton, with a fulltime personal mentor and intensive 
top-quality psychotherapy. Or a room at the Ritz with a full-time 
private tutor. Or a place in some of the expensive but excellent 
children's therapeutic communities that closed down over the years. 
Think of anything that might do more good to these children than 
shunting them rapidly around NVQ level 2 and 3 staff in care homes or 
with barely trained fosterers, receiving virtually no education. Many 
schools are reluctant to take them. Only 9% get five good GCSEs, only 1% 
go to university. Some will, of course, be cheaper when they fetch up in 
prison at a mere £30,000 a year."

But of course, it's not buying a place at Eton - or even decent care.  
It's paying for bog-standard care, carried out by carers paid £12,000 - 
15,000 a year: and the rest of the money is going to someone's already 
fat bank account.

1. What to do?  What are Leicester doing on Privatisation, and what has 
been your experience of campaigning?

2. We should try to get a UK LSF web-site going - one that allows 
distributed content on themes like privatisation, so we can collect 
experience, examples etc.  I'm not sure where the web-site project got to...

3. This *does* all tie in the up-coming G8: in fact, privatisation ties 
in more than most things, because it shows the local results of global 
trade policies (like GATS and the privatisation of services that 
Mandelson's currently pushing full steam ahead with...)  It would be 
good to work on materials showing the connections between G8 policy and 
the selling off of  local services.

Thoughts?

Dan




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