Privatisation and Regulation - FT series of articles

One of many issues that is highlighted by the failure of Carillion is Privatisation - a topic that sits clearly in the Economics A level syllabus. As many of us reach the part of our scheme of work that focuses on government intervention, competitive tendering for government contracts, and regulation, the FT have put together a brilliantly useful series of articles under the title 'Privatisation revisited'. The heading says that "A debate has intensified in the UK over the past two years about the merits of allowing private companies to run essential utilities that seem like natural monopolies. The country that was the global frontrunner in privatisation is rethinking how to run its public services". The links to articles cover all sides of the debate, from 'Royal Mail continues to show how privatisation can deliver' and 'Nationalisation: the wrong answer to a real question' , to 'Privatised monopolies need tougher regulation' and 'Thames Water: the murky structure of a utility'.

Back to Carillion: Some commentators have seen its failure as evidence that the process of privatisation of public sector organisations, and contracting out of management of public services, has failed - and although Carillion was not itself privatised, it was deeply involved in public private partnerships. 'Carillion’s private failure is a public problem' looks at what can be done when government contracts go wrong.