Here’s yet another dark side to the privatisation which started in Thatcherdom and accelerated to the nth degree in Osborne’s Age of Austerity. Handing over public services to business was great in theory, market forces bringing efficiency and taking away all that costly, civil service bureaucracy. What could go wrong if it’s all properly regulated? Thirty or more years on, we’re seeing the flip-side of polluting, profiteering water companies. We’ve heard of the disaster of private prisons and probation but who knew that even children’s homes had been given over to private equity ownership, and that big profits are being made from kids forced to go into care. The regulators are once again either useless or toothless, and it’s a hidden scandal which I only recently heard about from the excellent ‘The Rest is Money’ podcast. There has to be a better way.
“Cash ISA allowance could be cut this month”
Our mantra has long been ’straightforward advice that you can understand’. That can mean trying to simplify the many complex products and options with which the world of finance tries to befuddle its target audience.
