BAN THE BANDITS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2021 :: RMTnews 6 RMT is demanding lifetime bans for the bandit capitalists at the helm of one of Britain's biggest outsourcing outfits on the third anniversary of the Carillion collapse which cost the taxpayer £150 million and over three thousand jobs with a knock on affect on 75,000 more across a wide range of industries.  The collapse finally exposed the huge flaws in the concept of Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs), including the idea that by handing private companies and bankers huge extra profits from public sector capital investment you can deliver more cost effective public services. Concerns about Carillion's debt situation were first raised in 2015, and after the company experienced financial difficulties in 2017, it went into compulsory liquidation on January 15 2018 with liabilities of almost £7 billion. The collapse led to multiple parliamentary inquiries about the conduct of the firm's directors, its auditors (KPMG), the Financial Reporting Council and The Pensions Regulator, and about the government's relationships with major suppliers working on PFI schemes and other privatised outsourcing of public services. The PFI was a government procurement policy aimed at creating ‘public–private partnerships’ (PPPs), such as Gordon Brown’s privatisation of London Underground infrastructure, whereby private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects which led to widespread profiteering, greed and corruption. Initially launched in 1992 by the Tories, PFI is part of the wider programme of privatisation and financialisation continued under New Labour. A May 2018 report of a Parliamentary inquiry into Carillion's collapse by the Business and the Work and Pensions Select Committees found that it was "a story of recklessness, hubris and greed, its business model was a relentless dash for cash", and accused its directors of misrepresenting the financial realities of the business. The report's recommendations included regulatory reforms and a possible break-up of the Big Four accounting firms. A separate report by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, in July 2018, blamed the government for outsourcing contracts based on lowest price, saying its use of contractors such as Carillion had caused public services to deteriorate. Shortly afterwards, the government announced that no new PFI projects would be started and reforms in government procurement processes including the treatment of directors' bonuses paid in shares. However many existing PFI projects continue to operate as they are generally 20 to 30 year projects. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that the Carillion collapse should have been the final nail in the coffin for the sleeze and greed merchants who inhabit the UK outsourcing industry. “RMT is calling on the business secretary and the authorities to take action to ban the spivs at the heart of this scandal for life.  "The Carillion empire was built on a tissue of lies and deceit without any regard for the livelihoods of those caught in the crossfire of its inevitable collapse. All those culpable should be dealt with before time runs out.  "The sort of gross corporate negligence at the heart of the Carillion collapse should be a criminal offence and if that means a change to the law then so be it.  "There should also be a national ban on outsourcing in the public sector as we have seen from Carillion to the school meals hampers that none of these chancers should be allowed within a million miles of our public services,” he said. BAN THE BANDITS RMT calls for bans on bandit capitalists on third anniversary of Carillion collapse BANDITS: Graffiti at the site of the new £355 million Royal Liverpool Hospital which was being built by private outsourcer Carillion when it collapsed pushing the estimated completion date back five years to 2022.