Ryanisation

I'm no fan of Ryanair: its mendacious pricing, its borderline flouting of regulations and its outright contempt for its customers. A couple of Saturdays ago it provided 11 check-in desks at Stansted Airport while operating over 250 flights. Thousands of passengers were left behind, but of course as Ryanair sees it, that's their fault, or possibly the airport's, and they won't be getting any compensation.

Luckily I have a choice of airlines. I flew Ryanair a couple of times, when it was smaller and marginally less unpleasant than it is now, but I consciously avoid having anything to do with it any more.

It seems that some people admire Ryanair rather more than I do. According to The Guardian and other papers, the local (Tory) council in the London Borough of Barnet are looking at the Ryanair model in the provision of public services. It's not entirely clear what this means, but it appears that the council is looking to provide only the most basic of services "free" (i.e. paid for by all taxpayers), while charging for anything it deems to be an add-on.

Predictably, there's talk of contracting out service provision to the private sector, as if that's a new idea. Just about everything in my own area (which as it happens is just north of Barnet) is already contracted out. Some things, such as rubbish collection, work tolerably well, though I'm not entirely thrilled by the fact that the recycling lorry turns up at 6:30 in the morning. Others, such as road maintenance, are expensive and appallingly badly done.

Even if the private sector could do the job better, though, there would still be a philosophical issue. I have two levels of choice with Ryanair: to travel with them or not; and if I do travel with them, to pay for all the "extras" or not. I don't have the first and more important of those choices with my local council -- I can't get someone else to repair the potholes at the end of my street. Efficiency is a desirable thing, in both private and public sectors. However, it's wrong to assume that the pricing practices that might work for a wholly discretionary transaction, like that 6am flight to Bydgoszcz, can be applied to the monopoly provision of public services.