The issue with privatisation is figuring out how to do it well

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The increasing approach of penalty and crackdown from the government, populist as it is, may try to incentivise companies to improve (PA Wire)

I read with interest your editorial on the pros and cons of privatising or renationalising the water companies, and I agree with you that the argument for renationalising is unconvincing.

Equally the increasing approach of penalty and crackdown from the government, populist as it is, may try to incentivise companies to improve. But it also removes the capacity and wherewithal for actually delivering.

I have long felt that our issue with privatisation (or outsourcing) was not doing it, but doing it well and managing it well. When you privatise a service like water or the trains, you can never privatise accountability; it is more an outsource contract than true privatisation. The contract may set out responsibility, but accountability remains with the part of government responsible for that service. Therefore, it is vital that key success criteria are in place.

The contract should clearly set out not only the running of the service but the maintenance of it, thus ensuring the service is keeping pace with the changing world it is operating in. Secondly, we invest in contract and supplier management so that the companies are connected, engaged, supported and regulated in a more mature and positive fashion. As with many things it seems our current mode of operation is do nothing or shout at people, and neither of those work.

Our investment in contract management, supplier management and performance management is sadly woeful in this country, and without it we are just Canute trying to stop the rising tide of sewage.

Laura Dawson

Harpenden

Formula One has become a farce

The stewardship of F1 has descended into farce once again. Either in their zealotry to keep the sport safe or through their desire to generate greater drama, they are simply leaving the sport wide open to ridicule.

While the start of the race is recognised as the source of great excitement for the spectators it is also the moment when most accidents are likely to occur! The decision to reg flag the race following Magnussen’s incident instead of introducing the safety car already raised a few eyebrows, but to red flag the race once again (following a grid restart) with one lap remaining to the finish had everybody scratching their heads along the pitlane.

Will someone tell the FIA that Formula One Grand Prix are about motor racing – not about reducing them to the stop/start shambles we were witness to today in Australia.

J Wells

Alresford

Brexit is like a bad April Fools’ joke

I read on 1 April that the UK has joined a trade partnership with countries around the Pacific and that government ministers are jubilant over the 0.08 per cent rise in GDP to result from this – fully one-fiftieth of the expected loss due to the Brexit nonsense fouling up our trade with our European neighbours.

Was this an April Fool in the time-honoured tradition of The Independent? Or was it yet another example of the appalling follies being inflicted on us by this bunch of Tory incompetents?

Sam Boote

Nottingham

Net zero is an exercise in futility

If the UK’s drive towards net zero were to have a discernible impact on the world’s climate, then you could argue that the economic and social cost was justified; however it will not, so in the end this is simply an exercise in self-harm and the worst kind of virtue signalling.

The wealthy and powerful will cope just fine, but the rest of us will suffer.

Andy Brown

Derby

Love all

Oh dear, I predict some unpleasantness at Wimbledon this year now that the All England lawn tennis club have allowed Russian & Belarusian players to compete.

The best we can hope for is that the players concerned remember the 1982 tournament: Guillermo Vilas and José Luis Clerc both showed their displeasure at Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands by withdrawing.

Those were the days: morals before money. Fat chance now, I’m afraid.

Robert Boston

Kent