An amazingly in-your-face titled Capita conference looms for March: it’s called the “Developing Commercialism in Local Government Conference.”

Developing Commercialism in Local Government. That title really is about as blatant as they get. I hardly knew where to spit when I read it. Nobody is even pretending any more. Getting the private sector and a sales “ethos” into the public sector is the name of this game. It’s all about replacing the public service ethos with a commercial one – and outfits like Capita now happily brand their conferences to make that clear.

Back in my day, these private companies used to try and fudge the “aim is to make money out of public services” point a bit. Private companies would attempt to pour oil at our council meetings (I was a union steward representing members whose jobs were threatened by private sector takeovers) with coy phrases like “we just want to help enable public services,” or “we’re only here to assist your council with change management and then we’ll be gone,” and other florid bollocks. Now, we’ve got the likes of Capita turning up at councils with their tongues hanging out and saying point-blank Let’s Develop Commercialism. Read their bumpf and weep. This is the direction that public service “leaders” point themselves in today – “exploring the local drive towards commercialism,” keeping “a keen focus on engendering a commercial culture and overcoming risk aversion,” (hopefully not to the extent that Fred Goodwin did) and pushing heaps and heaps of money at private companies. As those of us who follow these things know, the commercialism of public services is particularly about pushing heaps and heaps of money at companies like Capita. We do keep seeing the same faces at these things.

So. Well-placed industry worthies are encouraged to “attend this senior level networking event to plot the way forward for a more commercially minded local government that enables revenue generation while delivering sustainable services that meet the local need,” says Capita. It is only a pity that the private sector consistently fails to deliver on this sort of fantasy.

Let’s just have a look at some of the fine print here and think about the sort of thing that it means:

The skills Capita conference attendees will learn include:

– “Moulding a commercially competent workforce with the skills to drive forward transformation.” I’ve had a think about this and wonder if it is atually code for: “Learn How to Get Rid of Unions And Scatter A Unified and Committed Public Sector Workforce To The Winds.” As we speak, for example, Barnet council workers (whole swathes of Barnet council services have just been outsourced to Capita), are fighting job losses, job shifts to different parts of the country, major wage cuts to already-low paid roles in carework and the fast-approaching closure of their union office as union facility time is removed. This workforce is being moulded all right. It’s being moulded into a low-paid, non-unionised, commercially-focused, service-users-count-a-lot-less-than-profit, insecurely-employed shambles.

Conference attendees will also gain insight into:

– “Conducting thorough market analysis to identify viable business opportunities.” I’m intrigued by this one. I didn’t realise things were so refined on this front. I thought these companies just found each council’s bank and then backed a large van up to the front door.

I wonder if the conference will share news here of the ironically-named Service Birmingham, the joint Birmingham council-Capita venture which runs Birmingham council’s call centre, IT systems and council tax collection service. As endless news reports on Service Birmingham show, costs to Birmingham council for this are thought to have skyrocketed to about £120 million a year from around £55m in a few short years.

I say “are thought to have,” because nobody seems too sure of the exact figures involved. That is because transparency around the money changing hands via Service Birmingham isn’t really there. Even people who should know how much is being spent with Capita don’t. Doesn’t bode well for too well for taxpayers. Birmingham councillors complained last year to the Birmingham Mail that they had “little idea” of how much the Service Birmingham arrangement was costing. The Mail even had Councillor John Clancy saying that Birmingham City Council members were being “deterred from getting a grip” on the nuts and bolts of the “complex” deal because the facts were unclear. “Nowhere is there a clear, total figure for what we are paying and what we should be paying,” the Mail reported Clancy telling a scrutiny meeting. “The biggest issue is transparency, we have little idea of what is going on.” Which was quite an amazing admission when you think about it. Perhaps Birmingham councillors should attend the Developing Commercialism In Local Government conference bit on “gaining insight into achieving robust governance and accountability in this new style of public services.” Am guessing that’s a pretty short session.

If they learn nothing there, Birmingham councillors could sign up for the bit where conference attendees will:

– “Explore commercial models of service delivery while safeguarding the social value brand of local government.” I’m not quite sure what a social value brand is, but am pretty confident that local government is running out of it, not least because of its relationships with private companies and their commercial models of service delivery. In Birmingham, recent news stories have strongly suggested that the council needs to choose between providing desperately-needed services (the sort of service that gives a council social value, I imagine), or continuing to pay Capita for whatever it does for £120m a year at Service Birmingham. So that could be it. Or perhaps the conference will touch on the commercial model of service delivery that Capita used to trash the social value brand that was once attached to the courts translation service. Or maybe conference contributor Essex county council will step forward to say a few words about the commercial model which led to the big contract that it had to prematurely end with BT – a decision which in turn led to threats of very costly legal action. I suppose ECC does know something about commercialism in local government. They certainly know something about being on the arse end of it.

Anyway – sounds like a great day out. I’d love to go, but sadly can’t, because Capita won’t let me attend its conferences. Boo hiss. I guess that until it does, we’ll just have imagine what goes on behind the scenes and screens.