State vs Private

This blogs has come about because I've discovered Russell Brand's Youtube channel and where he discusses what he has dubbed the 'Trews'. It is my no means a master piece in journalism, philosophy or entertainment but it isn't as bad as I was expecting given some of the 'outfits' he wears while doing it. Anyway one of the recent ... I guess they would be 'vlogs'?... discussed whether Katy Perry should be receiving benefits for her disabled child. In contrast to just about every comment on the video I was actually extremely glad Katy Perry is using her gov't benefits as it is an indicator that the quality of the state provided service (specialized schooling for disabled children) is of comparable quality to private tutoring. This is surprising to me given how class-ist UK education is more generally because of the two-tier system of private and state funded schools.

Creating a two-tiered system in any universal service is a bad idea. The reason for this is that most of these services require skilled labour (teachers, doctors, nurses, etc...) and there is a single pool of people with varying levels of skill from which all service providers draw their staff. Given that situation if there is competition between multiple service providers (eg. a state-funded school system, and various privately-funded schools) then those with the most money are going to attract & retain the most highly skilled individuals, ie. the privately-funded schools will hire the best teachers, and those with the least money are stuck with the least skilled individuals. Since I have previously stated that this service is universal the difference between the most and least money is a function of the level of economic inequality in the society (which in the case of the UK pretty darn huge).

A further problem arises by the vicious cycle created if consumers are also given a choice of which provider they obtain services from. Those services with the best staff will be able to pick and choose which consumers they want to appeal to, which since each staff member can only serve a particular number of consumers will be those consumers that have the most to spend (aka the rich). By tailoring themselves to serve the rich they are able to charge higher fees and get more money to spend on better staff. While those with lower quality staff will be left serving the consumers who cannot afford anything better.

Once a two-tiered system is in place it is very difficult to get rid of. The options most often employed to try and 'fix' a broken two-tiered system is to have additional training for the staff of the lower-tier service providers to improve their skill and the quality of service. This is of some help but it is limited by the fact that if any of the staff in the lower-tier improve their skills a lot they will almost certainly move to the higher-tier service providers. The reasons they will move are multiple, the higher-tier offers more money, nicer facilities, and higher-class clientele (in terms of teaching kids from well-off families have fewer behaviour problems than those of poor families) thus improving the economic standing, social status, and working conditions of their staff. Where as the only benefit lower-tier institutions can provide is greater job security (if that). Other 'solutions' that have been implemented are allowing users choice within the state-funded system but this just creates a three (or more) tiered system as people fight in anyway permissible given the admission system to get into the best of the state-funded schools and the best teachers in the state-funded system trying to get a job at the better schools. Or to force/bribe recent graduates to work in the worst/east-desirable schools, this again is of limited help since skill generally improves over-time so even the best recent graduates are only averagely skilled teachers.

Having competition between state and private suppliers of universal benefits where users have the option to pay more for better service is a recipe for a two- or multi- tier system which works to entrench inequality in society.