Tory spin masks new privatisation drive

Shadow chancellor George Osborne claimed that the policy was the biggest shift of power to workers since Margaret Thatcher introduced the right to buy council houses in the 1980s.

But campaigners accused the Tories of disguising their plans for privatisation. Under the proposals, workers at public services such as primary schools, jobcentres and nursing teams would decide how they were run - within certain national standards.

Speaking to the BBC Mr Osborne denied that it would result in a "free-for-all," claiming the plans were "pretty radical."

"We are saying to public-sector workers: 'If you want to, and only if you want to, you can create employee-led co-operatives and you can run state services, paid for by the taxpayer," he said.

"This is a power shift to public-sector workers so that they take control of their own working environment and they get away from these top-down bureaucracies which have made life a misery for so many people in the public sector.

"The check on quality here is that they would be contracting services to the local authority or the National Health Service and they would be providing a contract for community nursing or for primary education."

But Health Emergency spokesman Geoff Martin accused the shadow chancellor of propagating the "same old Tory spin.

"It is just privatisation wrapped up in another guise.

"We want publicly funded well run public services and you're not going to get those under the Tories," he said.

And the Co-operative Party branded Mr Osborne "clueless."

General secretary Michael Stephenson said: "George Osborne's comments show the Tories are completely clueless on co-operatives.

"Mutuality is about giving communities a say in how services are run - not just public-sector workers.

"The Tories don't understand co-operative values. Just as Cameron's Conservative Co-operative movement turned out to be neither a co-operative, nor a movement, George Osborne's plan for employee-run public services fails to balance the needs of consumers, the public, with the interests of the public-sector workers themselves."