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One Year On By Brendan Martin Published: September 2002 The decisive leadership shown by the Bush administration in its military response to the four murderous hijackings has been widely praised in Britain. But the significance of another radical change of direction following that atrocity seems to have attracted less attention. Seldom can there have been so dramatic an acknowledgement that some public services require regulation through direct government ownership and management - and that "flexible" labour markets can undermine service efficiency and quality - as that demonstrated by President Bush on 19 November last year. In a bill signing ceremony at Reagan National Airport, Bush established a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to bring under federal control, and into public employment, the privatised passenger and baggage screening operations found so tragically wanting two months earlier. Deregulation of US aviation in 1978 is now seen as the key landmark at the start of the long road through market liberalisation and privatisation of other sectors internationally over the quarter century since then. Did September 11 2001 mark the beginning of the end of an era of public service reform ushered in by airline deregulation nearly a quarter of a century ago? Brendan Martin gives a progress report and finds some lessons have yet to be learned. Brendan Martin is the author of In the Public Interest? Privatisation and Public Sector Reform, Zed Books/PSI, 1993, and In the Public Service, Zed Books (forthcoming). He is Director of the London-based think tank and consultancy, Public World.
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