On 27/02/2014 19:55, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Nightjar
wrote:

On 27/02/2014 18:20, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Nightjar
wrote:
...
However, as you have seen, what they want to achieve and what actually
happens are not necessarily the same thing. it would need a much
higher level of inspection and more tree lopping teams, to achieve the
target of removing *all* trees that might pose a risk. We couldn't do
that as a nationalised industry, at a time when we were looking for
ways to spend money, so that we didn't break the 2% profit cap.

You mean that even with a lot of money to spend, it wasn't possible to
spend it fast enough? Did the notion of price reductions to customers
not occur to anyone?

The adjustments were usually needed close to the year end and
increased expenditure is a faster method than tariff reductions, which
need advanced notice to customers. When profits had been too high
(i.e. close to 2%, which no private supplier would even consider)
there usually would be a price cut, but in the next financial year.
OTOH, one year, all the staff had their wages delayed by one week in
order to move the costs into another accounting period.

OK, fair enough, except that the private supplier might argue they'd be
more efficient anyway, being exposed to competition unlike the
nationalised industries (whether we have a sensible arrangement now
electricity is another matter).


That, of course, was the argument for denationalisation. Personally I am
not convinced that there was a lot of inefficiency, certainly not from
what I could see in my Board. However, it would be possible to
demonstrate 'savings' by cutting back on things that have no obvious
immediate benefit, such as the 20, 40 and 60 year infrastructure plans
we used to maintain.

Colin Bignell