General News Discussion

[eFestivals]

As I say, there are ways of managing staff to meet peaks and troughs.

yep, but only at the expense of what you're trying to save &/or at the expense of patients health.

Unless the staff are there available at any moment, people die.

Fact: you're wrong. Most large HAs were around long before LAs were forced to divest their stock

in which case they weren't large HAs at that point.

There weren't many large HA's until the LAs were forced to give away council tax payers assets.

if you compare current HA rents and current LA rents they are broadly similar

yep - but because LA rents are now more 'market rents'. LA rents have moved towards HA rents, it's not anything about rents staying broadly the same.

If you compare HA renters opinions on rents then and now they are anything but broadly similar.

Yes, HAs have been around for nearly 200 years....

if you're talking crumbs from the table, then yes you're factually correct.

You've lost me. I dont have the slightest idea what you mean...

Never mind, I'll leave you happy with your convenient memory loss.

I cant imagine how it would be done, but if your source is reliable I'll take your word for it

there's a van with fridge full of food at the start of the day.

there's a van with fridge empty of food at the end of the day.

How can't you imagine that happening? It's what is designed to happen, it's what is enshrined in law to happen.

It just doesn't happen as it's logically thought to happen. It doesn't take a degree in thievery to bring about the different distribution.

Seriously, if you can't imagine how it might happen then your knowledge of prison operation is bare minimum, Sun reader level.

They absolutely do not run the easiest prisons with the easiest prisoners. In fact they run some of the most difficult prisons with the most difficult prisoners, and the most expensive needs to meet - such as large local prisons (Peterborough, Birmingham) women's prisons (Bronzefield) and long term cat b prisons (Dovegate, Rye Hill). To describe any of these as the "easiest" prisons is just completely wrong. Most of the easiest prisons remain in the public sector

There is an average across the prison estate. The private prisons are on average below that average.

What's so hard about that for you to understand?

Why do you think it's factually wrong? It's not factually wrong.

Edited February 6, 2013 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Inquiry finds failings in the system and cost control....

People left in there beds and given no help to go to the toilet.

People left sitting in there own dirt.

Medicines prescribed but not given.

Not enough staff.

People discharge without proper regard for their welfare.

Hosts of failings by the primary care trust as well.

And Neil says we can't do better.... Dear me...

The dim view of the dim brain. I've never said anything remotely like that, but I can believe that the limits of your intelligence tell you that I have.

If you want to look at any single instance, then it's ve3ry easy to say "that shouldn't happen".

If you look at everything all of the time, then you get to seer that such things do happen, and that every attempt to stop them happening doesn't stop them happening - no matter what method of paying for that service is used, and no matter what management structure is in place.

No one has ever succeeded in stopping such things. But hey, Barry Fish will save the world.

That's of course the same Barry Fish who has happily stated that scamming the customer is sensible business practice which should be encouraged and certainly not thought of as wrong - which I'm sure won't lead to a single death, oh no.

[abdoujaparov]

yep, but only at the expense of what you're trying to save &/or at the expense of patients health.

Unless the staff are there available at any moment, people die.

in which case they weren't large HAs at that point.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

Inquiry finds failings in the system and cost control....

People left in there beds and given no help to go to the toilet.

People left sitting in there own dirt.

Medicines prescribed but not given.

Not enough staff.

People discharge without proper regard for their welfare.

Hosts of failings by the primary care trust as well.

And Neil says we can't do better.... Dear me...

[marky3]

and you've talked only empty nothings for all of your existence, what of it?

[eFestivals]

this is getting dull too - you clearly know little about the history of HAs

I know enough to know they've expanded hugely as a result of getting much of the council stock. The HA sector is now many times bigger in the number of houses it manages than it was 25 years ago.

You're making shit up

there are no fridges on prisoner escort vehicles

There might not be a fridge in all, there defo is in some. So who's making up shite?

But fridge or no, is not the point. The food that these vehicles carry by default is the point of what I said.

there is an average what? I'm sorry, but you're not making any sense

Good grief. You said that private prisons take the easier prisoners. They dont. That's a fact. They take prisoners amongst the hardest and most expensive groups to manage. There's no room for debate or doubt about that, they do. The evidence is there for anyone who cares to take a look at the kind of prisons the private sector runs....

"easier" is what I said, and "easier" is the indisputable truth.

Imagine each prisoner in each cat of prison (in both private and public sectors) being given a number, with that number starting at '1' for an open prison, and incrementing by one each time the category increases. Add them all together, and divide by the number of prisoners. You end up with an average for the whole prison estate.

Repeat that exercise for just the private prisons. You end up with an average number for just the private prisons.

I bet you £100 that if you did that exercise you would find that the average for private prisons is lower than than it is for the whole prison estate - thus proving that private prisons have on average easier prisoners to manage than the prison system as a whole.

There's no good grief here at all, just your misplaced drama.

[eFestivals]

Yeah when they said corporate cost control I wasn't really sure what they was getting at. Are they saying private providers failed ? If so there doesn't seem to be any mention of who etc.

I think the comment was more about the board of the hospital rather than a private body.

what you're missing is that the board of that hospital was operating no differently to how any private company would operate (if not turning away patients at the door, anyway).

The hospital is given a budget. It has to run the hospital within that budget.

If caring for the patients costs more than the budget will cover, then something is going to suffer - and that something will ultimately be the patients, because no matter where the cuts are made they're going to impact onto the level of care those patients can have.

[abdoujaparov]

There might not be a fridge in all, there defo is in some. So who's making up shite?

But fridge or no, is not the point. The food that these vehicles carry by default is the point of what I said.

[eFestivals]

it's exactly the point...your "evidence" was that the fridges are full of food at the beginning of a shift and empty at the end. So whether or not there is a fridge is entirely the point.

I love your diversions. It's not the point. The disappearing food is the point. My words to illustrate that disappearing food, and for no other reason.

And the vehicles dont have fridges. (They dont carry food either - food is provided at court or at prisons, not on the vehicles, but that's just a minor detail)

wrong on both counts, certainly for vehicles operating this week.

Sorry, but that is complete and utter nonsense.

so how would you calculate the average risk of a prisoner? Not in the way the prison service.

As I've said, private prisons mange some of the hardest and most expensive prisoners there are in the system.

except the ones who are actually the hardest and most expensive., You missed that bit.

There's no cat a private prisons.

Cat a costs the most, and in all legal senses they are the least easy to manage prisoners, just as the prisoners in open prisons are the easiest to manage.

They're also shit at doing it too.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/private-prisons-performing-worse-than-staterun-jails-1722936.html

They manage women's prisons

singular!

[abdoujaparov]

I love your diversions. It's not the point. The disappearing food is the point. My words to illustrate that disappearing food, and for no other reason.

Edited February 6, 2013 by abdoujaparov

[eFestivals]

something that doesnt exist cannot disappear....

did you check?

OK, we've established that neither of us believe the other. Only one of us is right. I'm quite happy sticking by my words.

Not in the way you suggest, which is not the way that the prison service does, either.

Security category only tells you whether a prisoner is a risk of escape, not how difficult or costly they are to manage

My initial 'easier' was within a discussion about costs, and was meaning 'easier' costs.

It's arguable whether or not cat A prisoners are the hardest to manage.

but no argument that they're the costliest.

Even if you adopt your way of judging ease of management (ie only security category), that is demonstrably untrue as the majority of private prisons are cat b. I'll happily take the £100 off you.

The majority of just eleven private prisons, most of which, including the womens, are (as you say) cat b (some also part YOI).

However, there's nine cat a prisons, the most expensive type.

Do we have to get down to prisoner numbers before you pay up?

All the evidence is that private prisons provide better conditions, are better at tackling reoffending, provide more constructive activity and time out of cell...

One has just lost it's contact, that's how good it was.

So while it might be true what you say (can't be bothered to check, tho it's counter to the general theme of newspaper reports), it's definitely a selective say.

[abdoujaparov]

OK, we've established that neither of us believe the other. Only one of us is right. I'm quite happy sticking by my words.

Edited February 6, 2013 by abdoujaparov

[pink_triangle]

Jeremy Hunt and his fellow conservatives seem to be relishing giving the NHS a kicking. I wonder how long it will be untill we hear the solution to the NHS problem is more privitisation.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

Yeah when they said corporate cost control I wasn't really sure what they was getting at. Are they saying private providers failed ? If so there doesn't seem to be any mention of who etc.

I think the comment was more about the board of the hospital rather than a private body.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

Jeremy Hunt and his fellow conservatives seem to be relishing giving the NHS a kicking. I wonder how long it will be untill we hear the solution to the NHS problem is more privitisation.

[5co77ie]

is he still getting rid of A Levels?

[eFestivals]

how many escort vehicles have you been inside?

None.

But unless you've been in every single one this very week, your own answer is no better than mine in relation to what I said.

Given that you don't know that every vehicle carries food and drink, your own knowledge is a long way from being knowledgeable.

(If the vehicles you've been on didn't have food and drink, that explains where the private operators are saving money, by not fulfilling the terms they are obliged to operate by ).

Clearly you dont know what "average" means. Your methodology was to count prisoners by security category and work out the average score. The public sector score would be lower because, despite having all the cat a prisons, it also has all the cat d and cat c....

Yeah, I don't know what average means, which is why I had to give you a method to give an average.

Your single women's prison has an awful lot of cat c & d's prisoners (all 5 women's prisons are a mix of category of prisoner, but the prisons themselves are classed as B's). And the private sector has a disproportionate number of them with its-just-one compared to its place within running prisons, as it does with youths too.

So what we've arrived at is private prisons having no cat A's, a disproportionately higher number of B's, but also a disproportionately higher number from the lower levels, of women's prisons and youths (by more than is the case with the B's)....

I'm still very confident with my bet. Care to count up the number of prisoners in each prison to try to prove me wrong?

The same company that took a prison from the public sector - so what conclusion do you draw from that?

that the private sector has failed to deliver on its promises and that the public sector can do it better. Which gets to show that private sector is not better.

That's me giving the same conclusion as the prison service has come to.

and newspapers arent selective?

oh, they are - but they're less selective than vested interests, which you very clearly are in singing the praises of private prisons which are failing to bring the improvements that they promised. Edited February 7, 2013 by eFestivals

[fred quimby]

(PS: I'm not talking from ignorance here btw. I get daily reports from the inside of prisons).

[eFestivals]

What does todays reports have to offer.

the same as most days, that it's almost impossible to do anything sensible and useful inside any prison - either for the prison itself or for the good of the prisoners - because the default stance of every prison regime to every sensible suggestion is 'no'. Edited February 7, 2013 by eFestivals

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

Did anyone see Rotherham council lost over 500k in one of those Nigerian prince 401k scams?

Apparently they are "trying to get it back". Yeah, good luck with that.

Edited February 7, 2013 by thesecretingredientiscrime

[abdoujaparov]

None.

But unless you've been in every single one this very week, your own answer is no better than mine in relation to what I said.

Given that you don't know that every vehicle carries food and drink, your own knowledge is a long way from being knowledgeable.

(If the vehicles you've been on didn't have food and drink, that explains where the private operators are saving money, by not fulfilling the terms they are obliged to operate by ).

[eFestivals]

Wrong. There is no security classification for women prisoners

Ahh, my mistake on the detail but my point remains - they're classed as cat B prisons to cover the highest risk prisoners, but do not exclusively house prisoners of just that B risk.

No. There is no basis in fact for your statement that private prisons hold a disproportionate number of prisoners from lower security categories.

I never said anything remotely like that.

I said private prisons - not prisoners - run a disproportionately higher number of all of Bs, womens and youth categories than the proportionate number of prisons they run within the service.

So against the average, those womans and youth prisons lower private prisons average number.

And the lack of cat As - which by themselves almost total the entire private prisons population - don't slant things against the private prisons.

Your starting point was that private prisons have more "easier" prisoners than the public sector. This is simply not true.

Then you'll be able to present me with a table showing the numbers of prisoners in each prison, their categories, and the calculations to show the average for just the private prisons as well as for all prisons.

No? Then you're presuming no differently to me.

Gladly.

oh, a promise to give me that table and calculations ... I'll enjoy seeing it, whichever way the answer goes.

You've missed the point.

One private sector provider lost its contract (Wolds). The same contractor took over a much larger, more complex and difficult prison from the public sector last year (Birmingham). The public sector is also about to lose control of four more prisons to the private sector (Castington, Acklington, Durham and Lindholme). This definitely doesnt show the public sector is always better....

I've missed no point.

(this is back where we came in....)

I've not said "the public sector is always better", but the private sector says that the private sector is always better. It's not.

What this gets to prove is the truth of the matter, that what makes the difference is the occasional shake up, to refocus minds on the task in hand.

This gets to mean that the public sector - in anything - is easily able to perform at the highest levels all the time, and can't be outperformed or out-costed by the private sector, as long as there's that occasional shake-up.

What happened at Stafford was dreadful, but it took thousands of staff and thousands of patients and thousands of relatives of patients to do nothing, or not enough, to get action from people who were feeling far too comfortable in their own positions - from the lowest employees all the way up to the likes of the head of the RCN.

There are a number of vested interests here. You're defending the public sector's vested interests. My view is that if there is a better way of providing public services, whether through organisations which are in the private, public or voluntary sectors, then we should be open to those possibilities....

Things go wrong in both the private and public sectors when people doing the job are no longer doing the job to the best of their abilities - it's not a public/private argument at all, it's an argument falsely created by the private sector for their own benefit, and all the while it diverts us from addressing the real problems.

Edited February 7, 2013 by eFestivals

[abdoujaparov]

I never said anything remotely like that.

[eFestivals]

But it doesnt matter, because when I have time, I will produce the average figures you've suggested. It's a bit of a busman's holiday, but it may be useful for some work I'm currently doing. It may take a while, though

Cool, I'll look forwards to that - I'm genuinely interested to see if what I think does pan out as true. Like I say, I remain confident that it will.

I agree. And I've never claimed that the private sector is always better. Just that the private sector is capable of delivering public services at least as well, and sometimes better, than the public sector. I want the best organisations delivering services - I dont care what sector they are in particularly

I put a bit of further thought into it, and do care what sector - because why pay more (or, alternatively, make people be paid less for doing the same job) for the same on-average results? The private sector cannot do the same job for the same price, because the private sector has additional costs.

But to get to that does require people to step away from the private/public argument to concentrate on improving working methods, a debate that the private sector stops from happening for its own dominance.

I agree, up to a point. There is plenty of evidence that the private sector can sometimes out perform the public sector, and cost less. Just as there is evidence that the public sector can sometimes outperform the private sector. The key is not to allow either to have a monopoly

It's nothing about a monopoly (on either side), and everything about the people at the sharp end of things. Crap employees are crap employees no matter who the employer - the art is stopping them from being crap, which isn't about bribery.

[abdoujaparov]

Cool, I'll look forwards to that - I'm genuinely interested to see if what I think does pan out as true. Like I say, I remain confident that it will.