There's nothing wrong with (legally) getting rich quickly. Generally this comes from being willing to take risks or from being in the right place at the right time.
But were they while it was state owned?
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Most service I know that is geared to make money is poor. In some cases you may loose on the call because of misdiagnosis or whatever. Those geared to make money will rip off in some way or other.
And drives down service levels.
What tripe! Greed and ambition/, etc are very different. Greed is wanting more when you have more than enough.
Depends on your morality.
You may have gleaned that people who have worked in these industries, and most importantly the customers, tend to agree that service was far better when state owned and the department was not geared to make as much as it can claw out of the customer.
Compared to the denigrations in service offered "after"... Come to think of it, i`m having problems thinking of a single "improvement" under private ownership - we used to just do our jobs and keep the network up and running.
Think about it - there`s talk of blackouts because the now-private companies are shutting down generation capacity because the profit margin isn`t high enough.
At least while state run there was, in theory, someone overseeing and making decisions about the industry. Now no-one does effectively.
Try explaining to private owners the benefits of a little over-capacity as a benefit to the whole country when they get no profit from it.
Is a "guaranteed standard" as proffered by ofgem really an improvement to a well (and regularly) maintained network, rather than one running on the bones of its ass ?
This all depends on how the service is organised, costed and delivered and the cultural values that go into it.
Nonsense. Service should not be equated to being something that must be given away in order to have value and be effective. It is precisely that cultural value which results in the poor organisation of all of the present and many of the former state run industries. Sadly they often have very skilled and dedicated people working at the sharp end but are ruined because the management have no concept of a service ethic and no clue about how to run a business. Thus resources are wasted and the best people drift away.
Actually not.
This was meant to be tongue in cheek. Besides, who is going to set the level of "more than enough". Clearly not the person with avarice. Since it will be somebody else, by definition the view will be subjective.
.andy
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Why?
This is part of the British disease that thinks that "it's not quite nice". I was careful to say "legally"; and I didn't suggest that it had to be by dirty dealing.
I personally know and have worked with people who have made sums in the millions in a few weeks as the result of stock options vesting through acquisitions. I know others who have risked their standing in the business world and much of their personal wealth and over a period of a few years grown their investment to hundreds of millions.
By the yardstick of somebody earning the national average salary, either would amount to more than they could hope to make in several lifetimes, so relatively, it would amount to "getting rich quick".
Do I think that it's immoral? Certainly not.
.andy
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In message , Niall writes
The problem arises when prices go up and quality of service goes down, especially when you're riding on a good past reputation
Not at all. I've gleaned that simply moving a publicly owned business into the private sector and not dealing with its culture doesn't work.
It isn't an issue of clawing as much out of the customer as possible, it; is of offering the required service at an acceptable price.
There are many private sector industries who are able to do this perfectly well, so the issue is the legacy, the culture and the history.
It's very easy for governments to throw billions in taxpayer's money into state run operations to prop them up. All that happens is that the abilities to run in a business-like way are never developed and the attitude that the customer is being afforded a privilege comes to the fore. The NHS is an obvious example of that. The current discussion about reform and funding is a complete nonsense - it's political tinkering. The only solution would be to create something completely new with a completely different basis of operation and shut the current thing down. Throwing aspirins at it is not the answer when major surgery is required.
The same should have been done with BG at the outset. A complete clear out of middle management and an instillation of a new culture.
.andy
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OK. So I think you are talking about an infrastructure organisation like the CEGB?
My view on the electricity industry is that some parts arguably should be run on a not-for-profit basis (distribution springs to mind). However, I do not believe that that means that it should be a state run setup in the same way as in the old days.
The standard principles and rules of business should be applied as though it is operating profitably in the private sector. This means paying the executives at the market rate, accountability for all employees, including having some income on risk based on achieving goals and targets. Individuals should be able to over-achieve on salary and conditions if they over-achieve on goals.
I see, no reason, however, to have the generating capacity under any form of state ownership or control.
That's a regulation issue. The operating license for a power generating company or facility should have certain technical provisions in it requiring certain availability and capacity criteria. I agree that it makes sense strategically to have that a little over and above what the market would suggest. However, it is simple enough for this all to be factored into the business model of the operating companies, and they should be required to take it into account. Given that this is made a requirement of the license, pricing should be allowed to be a little higher to account for it.
That depends on the definition of the guaranteed standard. That should account for what is required to maintain the network regularly and well, to be adequately fault tolerant and able to deliver the required capacity. Perhaps the issue is one of technical competence at Ofgem...
.andy
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Plenty of changes *could* be done when things are state owned. They aren't, though.
You'll notice the relevance of the part of Colin's post that I left unsnipped.
Free-marketeers don't believe in regulation.
I can notice it, but if you mean that the number getting rich is an issue, I don't see a problem either, morally or in any other way as long as it was legal.
.andy
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Nonsense.
It's a matter of appropriateness and degree and the areas in which regulation is applied.
Even in the world of totally private companies there is regulation through all kinds of legislation.
For example, if I am the director of a limited company, I have certain statutory duties including to my shareholders and my suppliers. I have to abide by those rules or I may be committing a criminal offence. The regulation is there to set the rules for all involved. This does not mean that the Registrar of Companies, the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise tell me how I run my business as long as I do so within the rules.
In Colin's example, it may well make sense for there to be a bit of overcapacity to safeguard the interests of the customer, even though it may come with some cost. It's reasonable to add that into the rules as long as everybody can take that into account in their business models.
It doesn't need a state operated system to achieve that.
.andy
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If goodwill could be measured (it probably can but only buy paying a customer survey outfil a lot) it would be interesting to know how long BG have got before their stock runs dry.
"Ed Sirett" wrote | If goodwill could be measured (it probably can but only buy paying | a customer survey outfil a lot) it would be interesting to know how | long BG have got before their stock runs dry.
I was amused to see a huge advertisement on the side of some scaffolding in Edinburgh for British Gas ... with a Scottish Gas logo visibly pasted-over the British Gas bit.
BG's slogal is of course 'doing the right thing' ... shame they didn't get it right first time with their advert.
Owain
To be honest, if you could show your displeasure with the stupid bastards who have inadequate capacity by switching suppliers to those who have capacity, it would cease to be a "regulation" matter and just market forces.
Private owners offering secure generation capacity is good thing. Unfortunately, under the old state system, we made bigger and bigger electricity generation stations, which can then approach the theoretical maximum efficiency of (35% ???) for electrical generation from thermal sources. This ignored security of supply ( lose one station and 10% of national capacity) and the potential benefits of central energy schemes where the low-grade heat remaining could be profitably sold on for industrial or private heating. I think that was a result of a statutory obligation to generate electricity and not "generate energy" (I know, I know - you can't generate energy, but you might know what I mean)
If we had small generating plant, dotted around towns, a competitive service would have grown up. Possibly many of these small operations would have started to invest in renewables.
Steve
Hence the multiple posting? ;-)
Chris
All generators effectively piss into the same pot though. Just because one may theoretically may have more capacity than another means nothing when there is no means of switching customers from another supplier off because "their" supplier is low on capacity.
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