Boltar wrote:
Why should they run it themselves? Doing so would be unlikely to bring
many benefits. The concession approach is similar to the running of the

Apart from the fact that they wouldn't require having to make a profit
out of the service , unlike any company that does run it. Unless they
have all been struck by the christmas spirit and will do it all for no
comeback.

The whole point about tendering is that demonstrably, in real life, the
efficiency savings delivered by private contractors compared to
state-owned organisations are greater than the margins that the
contractors command.

This is why bins are emptied by Veola and prisoners escorted by Serco.
It's also why government organisations generally buy biros from Bic and
computers from Dell rather than having a special government biro and PC
factory.

PPP is a different story, with a skewd allocation of risk and an
inefficient capital structure, but this isn't relevant to the London
Rail operational contract (interestingly, from what I've read about the
deal it seems that TfL is buying the new rolling stock directly from
Bombardier rather than it being owned by a ROSCO. This is definitely a
Good Thing.)

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org