Of course, but that wasn't really the point I was interested in. For example, it's often claimed that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector and publically owned enterprises (such as the former British Rail). But if 'privatised' services are actually run by a government owned entity (even a foreign one), do those advantages still apply?
The usual argument I've heard is that management control is the key thing: can the politicians affect the operation of the business for political reasons?
That may even flip things around, because I have heard it said that politicians had less direct control over BR than over the current franchised operators.
Having once had the opportunity to do much the same (temporary) job at a public body and a private company, I couldn't see much difference, but I guess there might be something.
I agree that foreign government owned companies working in the UK and being subsidised does seem very odd arrangement though.
On a related point, should the British government set up a publicly-owned company to bid for contracts (or whatever) to provide services in foreign countries, on a for-profit basis?
A company owned by the UK government that went round bidding on deals against private sector firms would be really interesting to see.
Set it up as a PLC and have the government own all of the shares. Keep any debt off the public books.
It would allow much better comparison. I like having EC as a benchmark to compare the private operators for this exact reason.
Given that privatisation happened, I've always wondered if it would have been better just to privatise the whole of BR intact as a single company. Then it could be doing what DB and NS are doing now...
