Does the Public sector have customers ?

In light of the recent pronouncements by George Osborne , it is really obvious that the Lib Dems are having an effect,not only on the Policy declarations but in the tone and the vocabulary being used to express Tory cabinet reasons for policy recommendations.

The outburst by a Tory minister about the pay of Public sector pay for Chief executives , flies in the face of previous Tory policies of treating all public sector departments like businesses , privatisation and reward for success.

I used to have arguments with a railway enthusiast who used to say that the railways need re-nationalised and there is no such thing as customers ,"people are passengers" he used to say.The punctuality and safety of railways has increased immeasurably under the private sector , but regulation does need to be used to keep the companies mindful of public interest.

The voices yesterday at the Tory Party conference had the same dilemma.Can you run Government funded services as businesses when the public has their say through the ballot box. Clearly so far the answer is no.

People could be forgiven for believing that the party in Government today is a centre right coalition party , almost in the same space as the now defunct New Labour. The issue is that , the way in which public money was used under the last Labour government , was spent as if it was their money.Ideology driven!!

The private sector, learned a long time ago that if you do not listen to your market the business does not prosper but it needs to be able to fund initiatives.

Accepting that dispensing government funds has a political prioritisation , public sector and the public at large need to understand that money is in short supply and even Governments have a credit rating.That requires cost effective management.

If the last 18 years has proven anything it is that ideology costs money , and we were virtually bankrupt.It is too easy just to attack big salaries in the Public sector.Let us find a different model that at least means our children do not have a perpetual debt legacy form badly run Public sector.

We have to remember that although the banks started the run on our National finances, we were already in a bad starting position to deal with it