Consumer reviews vital in commissioning public service delivery

 

When I read this New York Times article opening paragraph

 LONDON — Inside a dormitory now known by students as H.M.P., for Her Majesty’s Prison, trash piled up in shared kitchens. Students washed their clothes in bathroom sinks. Security guards stalked the gates, keeping anyone from leaving or entering.

just now, my memory flashed back to a Wembley Matters blog post by Martin Francis from four years ago, when I was still a Londoner and Web Logging and commenting on behalf of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group in the Internet guise of 'Dude Swheatie of Kwug':

Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Awards Panel blasts private student accommodation providers

Unite student accommodation, Olympic Way LINK

As another student accommodation block opens on Olympic Way. Wembley, readers may be interested  in the decision of a panel deciding on an Award for Student Accommodation, sponsored by Property Week.

There were due to be more than 2,500 student units around Wembley Stadium whenI last checked.

The Panel refused to nominate a winner and wrote the following to the organisers:

Awarding panel concluded: "Unless all students have access
to safe, affordable accommodation, at every institution
and the means to pay for it, there is no cause for celebration,
nor the ability for us to award a for-profit sector
failing so many of our peers."

 

I commented then at the foot of that Wembley Matters blog post:

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group said...

Brilliant! I would say that the panel concerned were really well-educated, as evidenced by their response!

Would the Department for Work & Pensions [DWP], or, say, the 'Employment Related Services Association' venture so bold as to launch a user-led nominations award?

Perhaps if the DWP launched such an award, their way of engaging the panel's co-operation would be by fear of benefit sanctions? Centre for Crime & Justice Studies: Benefit sanctions: Britain's secret penal system

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

25 October 2016 at 13:24

 Of course, that was years before Coronavirus began to hit around the globe, but I would argue that all this emphasises the sheer stupidity of basing international economies upon the an ideology that venerates privatising public services, cutting taxation for the wealthy, and treating renters as criminals to be coerced into modern slavery.