[Joe] :
I'm quite certain that if I contracted with a private company to supply
me with goods or services and they failed to do so, they wouldn't just
walk away with my money.

When it comes to things like contract cleaning you know (a) that if you
want to get rid of the current firm for non performance the bidders for
the replacement contract will know that you a distress purchasers and bid
accordingly; and (b) once the new firm has taken over you'll find that
their promises are less than watertight and they've just re-employed all
the old workers who were doing the work before. So it ends up being
better the devil you know.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
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