T HE bottom line in any discussion about the private sector's place in public service is that the best interests of shareholders and users are not compatible. But given Labour's enthusiastic expansion of the last Conservative administration's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes over the last decade, one has little choice but to accept that private companies are now firmly entrenched in most areas of public service provision for at least a generation. The problem is that these private companies seem immune from criticism when the public is unhappy with the service provided. Take Sodexho, which took over the University Hospital's catering contract 10 weeks ago. After an unprecedented number of official and unofficial complaints about the standard of food, hospital management has been obliged to defend the company's long term ability to deliver the requisite quality and the decision to award them the contract in the first place.

H ospital management assures critics that if Sodexho falls below agreed performance levels, the NHS trust will withhold payment accordingly. But what are those levels? How bad must the service be before penalty clauses are triggered? Unhappily this information apparently falls within the convenient bureaucratic catch-all of 'commercial confidentiality'. So, for all we know, Sodexho may be meeting agreed performance levels. After all, a government keen to encourage companies to engage in the PFI system has to allow a profit margin. Hospital management assures us that 'there will be zero complaints' about food. We hope so, but with a minimum seven year contract, Sodexho has everyone over a barrel.