Who said give away. Overt rip-off at every opportunity is what we see now. The hidden camera consumer programmes should only the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
I will clarify further. Greed is taking the largest postion of the cake, as much of the cake, or all of the cake if you could, when you already have a more than big enough share of the cake. By taking more of the cake you deprive others. That is the main difference: of ambition, etc and greed.
This had nothing to do with service levels.
I didn't say it did. It did have and was not private.
One has bottles and the other not. very different. Yes have bottles in your 2nd floor flat running the CH and DHW. I think not. Transco is a private monopoly.
In the private sector, I have always found that people are not well trained with little or no backup in equipment or knowledge, unless it is a high tech commercial or industrial setup.
BG when public owned had well trained and qualified people.
There was nothing wrong with the service culture when public owned, nothing at all. They dealt with more service calls per year than any other organisation by 1000 miles. They required computerised service/customer systems, which only becoming available just as they were being privatised. All the so called better private management culture in the past 20 years has done nothing but reverse service levels. believe it or not, they tended to know how to service their appliances and systems.
What is the difference? One private and run not for profit, but the top people,can pay themselves millions , but still no profit, or a well run system like we had under public ownership with no top management rip-off artists hanging about.
They were when in the public sector. BG was never subsidised by the public. If you didn't pay your bill they cut you off.
Market rate? Is that what they call it. Pays off for failure of millions. I call it extortion.
BG has a bonus scheme going when public owned. A "private" company came in assessed their system and implemented it.
The bonus scheme
I do. To keep it away from private rip-off sharks. Power is essential, to the nation, it must be in firm reliable hands.
< snip Andy scraping the barrel to defend the indefensible. >
They do everything to get rid of any form of regulation. In the City they have "codes of conduct". Can you believe it? yes, "codes of conduct", while the rest of us conformed to laws.
It is rip off when the service rendered is not commensurate with the service given, as is the case with BG who are not operating in the way required to achieve a successful service business.
They are promising and charging long and delivering short simply because their culture and mentality remains that of the public sector.
This is, of course, total nonsense. The notion that the cake is of a fixed size is fundamentally flawed as that which says if some get more, others must therefore get less.
Generally it is the efforts of the few which enlarge the cake for all concerned.
You may not like the situation that others have or get more than you. I'm sorry about that, but it is one of the effects of capitalism.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Anyone who anything about BG will tell you different. It has been privatised for 20 years now. The service side had so called experts from the private sector brought in to sort it out. What they meant was provide greater profit for little outlay. Service levels were alien to them.
The culture at BG, and other privatised industries is firmly a private let's rip em off culture.
In your mind maybe.
No. it is the hard work of the many that make matters work for all.
Oh my God!! The old one out of the sleeve. I criticise greed, incompetence, a flawed system giving privilege to a chosen few, etc, so I must be jealous in some way because I am not a part of the rip off. Grow up please. Some people have intelligence and some morality too. And can see things as they are.
Then it's very simple. The rules of the market will apply and those not offering the service that the customer demands will go out of business. I have seen poor private sector service organisations and excellent ones in the same industries. It is perfectly possible to provide what the customer requires.
That's very nice, but the issue is whether the customer was getting the required level of service. To that, in my mind the answer was a resounding no when they took it upon themselves, and still do to prioritise customers according to their perception of the customer's need. That is unnacceptable. A service contract is a service contract. People should be in a position to pay for the level of service they require and get it. End of story. The notion that BG has of sending fitters to customers who they perceive to be more deserving cases based on whether they are an old lady or someone with a small child is a nonsense. The service response time should be clearly stated in the agreement and achieved, with compensation if it is not. If BG want to offer a higher level of service to the vulnerable at an attractive price, that's fine, but it should be done with incremental staffing, not by making other customers wait.
I don't believe you, and that is not my experience. It should have been broken up into much smaller organisations, or completely dismantled and reconstructed.
The poor service arises from the cultural legacy of not being able to operate in the commercial world. Other industries manage it perfectly well and do not require public ownership to achieve it.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
You obviously have no notion of the way that successful businesses operate.
Pay in the private sector is determined by the market and the shareholders. In the public sector, the same accountability is not there.
There is a lot more to the principle of private sector business than that.
Call it what you like. The market very effectively determines compensation packages for executives and other employees. Ask the HR department of any significant company and you will find that they spend a lot of time looking at this issue, in order to attract the people that they want, while not paying more than is required. It's a simple matter of supply and demand.
I don't mean woolly group bonus schemes. I am talking about individual accountability with extra income and benefits for overachieving, a shortfall and ultimately the sack for underachieving.
Then it definitely needs to be kept away from the state.......
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
I know them from the perspective of being a customer. That is what counts.
Bringing in management consultants is a disease of both the public and the private sectors. It is symptomatic of situations where the management of the organisation has no clue and wants to have somebody to blame if something goes wrong. There is nothing wrong with consultants in principle - the skill is finding the right ones, and those people will probably not tell you what you want to hear.
Private ownership does not equate to ripping off. Industries that have always been in the private sector do not generally have this difficulty. The problem seems to be largely among those who were in the state sector and have not been able to make the transition into the private sector because middle management does not have the commercial skills to deliver on the customer's requirements.
It is the hard work of all concerned, including those who are running the organisation.
It's interesting to note that capitalism in its many forms has operated successfully since the dawn of time and across multiple civilisations. Socialism is the failed experiment of the 20th century, which hopefully will not be repeated in the 21st.
This is not an issue of morality, but just an understanding of the natural scheme of things - the survival of the fittest.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Yes they were when public owned. The odd screw up which the right wing press at the time would blow to high heaven.
privatised.
A few ex public sector employees are on this ng, and almost all will tell a similar story. I know a ex service manger at BG. When privatised the canteen manageress was made head of the service depts, having no experience whatsoever in this field, management and technical. He left.
BG was in area boards and that area arrangement was kept when made BG from the old gas board.
It resulted in having private rip-off merchants run the place for a fast buck.
No one was bigger than BG. No one.
I last seriously studied economics about 30 years ago, but for a free market to exist a whole number of conditions have to be satisfied, one of which IIRC is that buyers and sellers have 'perfect' knowledge about what is being bought and sold. Patently in many cases the buyers haven't and the sellers aren't going to enlighten them. Instead you get BG adverts telling you that replacing your CH pump could cost £542 (or whatever) and so a 3-star contract makes sense or Currrys selling people extended warranties for products that have a I have seen poor private sector service organisations and
They coexist because of the lack of consumer knowledge, also because of supply shortages - if your CH breaks down you will be strongly tempted to go to the firm who can come round today, not the A1 guy who is booked for the next 2 months.
Successful to you mean make lots of money at any costs. To others it means make money and provide the service.
Extortion!
Who assesses? A bonus scheme meant reward for a good quality high work rate.
So you like the prospect of brown outs and black outs then.
Successfully? Have another look.
The Soviet method you mean. This is like saying that Christianity is useless because of the Spanish Inquisition or factions of it are killing each other in Northern Ireland. The teachings of Marks are sound.
Overt right wing countries based on capitalist greed underperformed and have a large section of the community grovelling poor.
As in Marks and Spencer? Presumably this involves St. Michael as well..
So capitalism is the right way........ .andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Not in my experience.
This was my point. In order to operate successfully, people who know the business sector *and* who know how to run a business are required. The public sector does not provide the correct environment to achieve the second of these, so sadly, those who are equipped with the knowledge of the sector do not make good business managers.
A renaming exercise is not enough. It is necesaary to break up the old structures completely and start again.
There is nothing wrong with making money quickly. A rip off only arises when a customer does not feel that he is getting value for money. He then shops elsewhere. The private sector gives him the opportunity to do that.
Therein lied and lies the problem, as with other megaliths such as the health service. All of these need to be broken up and totally restructured.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
That's what it means to me as well. I don't have the angst that you do about making good money out of providing high quality goods and services. The two are fully compatible, not mutually exclusive. The customer's willingness to pay ultimately sets the market conditions.
That would imply taking money illegally.
Very simple. A general policy guideline is used across the company, and then assessments of individuals done by their manager and their manager's manager to ensure fairness.
No. But then we've moved on from the days when Scargill and his union cronies held the country to ransom.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Nor mine. And they don't get another go, so I'll never know if they're any better now.
The people there were very bright and knew how to run their service depts with a service level from every level. You read the Daily Mail too much.
There was no need at all as it worked. They did change it now look what we have.,
BG was broken up and now look at the mess.
There is nothing wrong with making money from a high quality service, if the service IS high quality and the public not ripped off.
BG provided high quality service with public owned and it geared to break even. It was cheaper to have your boiler seen to than your cheapo Indesit washing machine. It worked, and it worked well to the benefit of the service people and the public.
That is debatable and people are calling for laws to make it illegal.
The managers? Do you mean the canteen manageress? I'm sure she can assess a CH engineer.
No they never. Scargill predicted the closure of all the mines and fought to stop it. It is in his contract of employment to do so. He adhered to his contract.
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