Leaders | Hard bargains

Carillion’s collapse raises awkward questions about contracting out

Britain, the world’s leading privatiser of public services, needs to get better at it

Jan 18th 2018

WHAT do high-speed railways, school lunches and army bases have in common? Perhaps not much, which may be one reason for the dramatic collapse of Carillion, a jack-of-all-trades contractor that did a bewildering array of work for Britain’s public sector. On January 15th the firm went into liquidation, casting doubt on the prospects of its 43,000 employees, 30,000 subcontractors and the fulfilment of government contracts stretching three decades into the future.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Britain’s hard bargains”