The conference was suspended as a mark of respect to those who died in the terrorist atrocities in the US.
Tony Blair had been due to deliver a key speech on private sector involvement in the public services.
Copies of the proposed 11-page speech distributed to delegates reaffirms the government's commitment to PFI and PPP.
In the draft speech, Blair urges unions to stop misrepresenting him over PPP and promises not to extend private sector involvement without union consultation.
'The key test is improvement of the public service,' the draft states. 'There are great examples of public service and poor examples. There are excellent private sector companies and poor ones. There are areas where the private sector has worked well; and areas where, as with the railways, clearly it hasn't.
'So where use of the private sector makes sense in the provision of a better public service, we will use it. Where it doesn't, we won't. The areas we propose to have a role for the private sector are set out with crystal clarity in the NHS plan, the education white paper, and the ten-year transport plan. Should these proposals change or be added to, we will discuss it with you.'
Blair had been expecting a hard time from unions at the conference, and the speech was clearly an effort to diffuse tensions.
'Nobody is talking about privatising the NHS or schools,' the draft states. 'Nobody has said the private sector is a panacea for public services.'
He said Tupe provisions will be strengthened to give workers better protection and said poor public service was not the fault of the staff.
'In hospitals in particular, I often think the staff work flat-out but in a system that shrieks for change; changes in working practices, changes in technology, changes in co-ordination between social services and the NHS, changes in the way we treat the patient.'
In the draft, Blair said that where the private sector is used, it should not be at the expense of proper working conditions for the staff.
However, later in the speech Blair repeated an earlier statement that 'no-one has a veto on reform'.
On the first day of the conference before it was cancelled, a number of delegates had already vented their anger about private sector involvement in the public sector during a debate on transport.
A delegate from the RMT rail union said that privatisation of the rail network had been a disaster. 'Government has tried, but it is not possible to [fix] something that is fundamentally flawed,' he said.
He urged delegates to join the RMT in its bid to stop government making the same mistake with the London Underground.
Meanwhile The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) general secretary Richard Rosser said that PFI and PPP should be open and transparent. 'We want the opportunity to comment on the outcome ahead of these agreements being signed.' He said hiding facts because of 'commercial confidentiality' — as seen in the Deloitte & Touche report on the London Underground PPP commissioned by Transport for London — is just another form of buck passing, which must stop.
Source
The Facilities Business
