The solution to the ‘problem’ of inefficiency in the fire service has just suggested itself to me. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this before, it is the logical conclusion of the whole of society being one big market
Zero hours contracts!
We define the job as solely ‘putting out fires’ we work out, therefore, that fire service personnel are essentially casual temporary workers. We redefine the fire station as a social club where people gather on the off chance of some work. We impose a zero hours contract so that we don’t pay them when they don’t actually have a hose pipe in hand, but we insist they have to be ready and on call and can’t be anywhere else. We might be able to chuck them a few replica football shirts to stitch on the quiet, maybe.
I thought about making them buy their own gear as well, but that’s just stupid. The public purse can provide the gear, but we can outsource the maintenance of that gear to some of my mates in the private sector, maybe like Serco who will then charge £230 odd to put up a coat hook (real world example from the NHS).
This is what the Tories are doing to our public services.