Renationalisation and Elected Chiefs.

I am and always have been firmly against the privatisation of state owned industries, this position does not blind me however to the faults of nationalised industries nor to the benefits of privatisation.
I’ve been thinking about restructuring existing goverment industries and doing the same with present private sector industries and services after first renationalising them.
To start, the NHS, which at the moment faces many challenges and is failing to deliver in certain key areas, those that have been popularised by the media are the issues of waiting lists and hygiene, successive governments have thrown money at the service in the hope of curing its ills (no pun intended) and yet little improvement has been apparent.
The danger of this situation is the tendency for people to call for its privatisation, as with any flailing state monopoly it is customary to sell the entire institution for a few magic beans, whilst the merits of privatisation are generally seen as being choice for the customer who decides which companies live or die by choosing who to use, which leads to an increase in standards across the board in an attempt to survive. The problems we’ve seen with privatisation are of course the onset of what Scott Adams terms a ‘confusopoly’ whereby the huge increase in companies all offering the same service has not resulted in a better deal for the consumer, merely an increased ability for companies to screw the customer whilst making it seem like a good deal. The example of Energy services is, I feel, applicable in this situation and also telecommunication services, when a company compares its price per minute for phone calls against BT and does so favourably then it is usually worth a good read of the small print because the shortfall will be made up somewhere along the line.
Whilst Privatisation is meant to result in increased government revenue with due to the increased profit margins of the successful company this unfortunately has not been the case.
Since the program of privatisation was unleashed by the Conservative party in 1979 the public sectors balance sheet has taken a remarkable dive for the worse, this is a result of several key factors, the sale of public assets, the reduction in capital spending and the rise in net government liabilities such as national debt, though Privatisation is only one element in this decline it is clearly a major one.
Another factor generally ignored regarding privatisation is the underpricing of state assets, when industries have been put onto the public market there have been an excess of applications for shares, a clear sign that the price is too low, instead of raising the price of the shares the government has scaled back the applications. It becomes clear that the government has been treating its industries and services in the same way a person might treat a car which they are desperate to sell and are willing to take a massive loss in offloading it onto somebody else.
I would like to continue the car analogy for a little while longer in the following way, were I to be the owner of the rusting hulk of a VW Karmen ‘64, I’m faced with three choices, the first and least proactive is to let it continue rusting, the second and easiest proactive choice is to sell it to the highest bidder and lets face it, I’d be lucky to get its scrap value, lets call that $500 for arguments sake.
On the surface thats an easy and quick solution, I no longer have a decaying car in my garage, I have a $500 cash injection to my account and I can get on with using my garage to sacrifice virgins without getting rust all over my pagan robes…or whatever takes my fancy.
However.
Third option is that I put in the necessary time, effort and funds to restore the car to its former grandeur, it’ll cost me a whole lot more than $500 that is for sure, but at the end I’m left with a Car which not only would fetch me $30′000 and likely more,  but is a joy to drive about, a surefire way to get a couple of shallow girls back to my place and results in me having an asset which increases my personal worth as well as being something which I can enjoy. I have the feeling I’ve repeated myself there but if I term it reiteration then I can get away with it.
Lets go back to where I’ve sold the car for $500 as a quick fix solution. Someone else fixes the car up, someone else benefits from the cars rejuvanation and suddenly I want it back; well tough luck buddy! it’ll cost you $100′000.
Damn!
Now throw into that a little bit of the free market economy, make me the government, make the car the railways and you’ve got a simple overview of privatisation and its long term effects.
So take it as read its not half as great as its been made out to be.
However there are some benefits and the main benefit is that it allows for experimentation, it does rely on popularity and in a part sense, efficiency (it depends whether that is in providing or screwing of course)
So here is my idea.
Once renationalised, industries and services would be broken down into districts, loosely based on existing country boundaries.
The population within that district would be required to vote at regular intervals probably in line with current local council elections to save hassle as to who they would like to see as chiefs of the respective county services.
For example as well as choosing your counciller, you would choose your Chief Constable, General Health Chief, Transport Chief, Postmaster, Fire Chief, Education Head and so on.
The candidates for election would be subject to certain stipulations, for example a candidate running for Chief Constable would have had to have performed a set amount of service with the Police force although not necessarily locally and have attained a certain rank lets say Sergeant, the same criteria would apply to the other candidates each being required to have performed the job they wish to take charge of.
The elected official is then free to experiment and run their service within the guidelines set by the government and the remit that is given to them by the ministerial regulatory bodies ie. It won’t be permitted for a ‘creative’ postmaster to improve efficiency by burning everybodies mail or for an equally artistic Chief Constable to reintroduce the death sentence for stealing.
These people will have to play within the rules but as for how they decide to run their departments its up to them and their internally elected heads of staff.
The real benefit here is that there will be competition within industries because the head of British Rail in Hampshire would doubtlessly like to have a better performance than the head of British Rail in Surrey and so forth, however because these people would be part of the same company and working together in that respect, it would foster a air of competition which did not mean people being caught in the middle of a pricing war between rival companies, nor would it mean hostilitly in the market place, company bosses would all be on the same team, the spirit of competition would at worst result in a couple of disagreements and nothing worse.
Best of all the department heads would be fully accountable to their electorate and therefore have the incentive to do well otherwise they can wave goodbye to their jobs, this is not to say that some effective department heads won’t get thrown out by an electorate which hasn’t fully grasped the idea, but thats a fault of democracy, it would be hoped that if a chief was doing a good job it wouldn’t be expedient for an electorate to vote him out.
The problem that could arise from this is of course a vast inequality across the nation, but I would argue against this due to the shared information and knowledge in the conferences held between the elected heads, when something works it would undoubtedly be copied by many others resulting in an increase in the general standard of the service in question, and also in increased competition to come up with a working idea first, there would not be a possibility for secrets to be kept as all policies would be required to be submitted to a central database for referral by anybody who cares to take a look, in this respect good working practices thrive and bad ones die out quietly.
What in effect we have is nationalisation with all its benefits combined with the benefits of privatisation, and due to the state ownership of its assets and increase in public sector accounts, healthy returns to the treasury, public satisfaction, choice and focus and a complete reduction in the detrimental effects of privatisation, I would also hope it would lead to a reduction in national debt due to the efficient use of government money and the benefit of increasing returns.