First Capital Connect has been in the news. Commuters have finally lost patience with poor service, high costs, questionable pricing policies and overcrowding. An overtime ban coupled with a feeble reaction to recent snowfalls has compounded the situation into one of genuine public anger.

Railways in many parts of the country are monopolies. You buy a house away from where you work, relying upon public transport to get you to and from your place of employment. The car is often not a realistic alternative. Other railway lines may well not be available.

What does the public do when faced with a monopoly? Many monopolies are of course public institutions and the solution there is to exercise your franchise. This becomes a bit more difficult with the NHS – an essentially local service where the only ‘accountable’ person is the Secretary of State.

More difficult by far, however, are the other public services fully in private hands. In addition to the railways, there is for example telephone and broadband, gas and electricity and higher and further education.

If your broadband fails you have to fight your way past BT’s stonewalling attempts to blame your computer.

There is some pseudo-competition in gas and electricity, which certainly helps. But what if you are not happy with your local FE college? Or the local University is failing to deliver for students or the local economy?

The Local Authorities (Overview and Scrutiny) Bill introduced as a private member’s bill this week would strengthen the powers of local councils to take on those organisations which can damage our lives. The Department for Communities and Local Government backs the Bill and comments that service providers would be held to account on a range of issues like:

• energy companies digging up roads, pavements and gardens for repairs and then leaving them in worse condition once finished;
• many things commuters care about – station safety, proper lighting, decent facilities and access;
• young families with children using regular bus services to get to school who feel the discounted bus tickets are still too expense;
• gas and electricity companies digging up and blocking roads and pavements
• bus services in largely rural areas
• concerns about other local services including, local sports facilities, museums, libraries, health and safety, and the fire and rescue service.

This sounds good. But those of us who sit on Health Scrutiny Committees know the cynicism with which the NHS treats council processes: in Hertfordshire the local NHS thought that the best way of concealing its financial mismanagement was to fail to meet the committee deadlines and to table the offending statistics during the scrutiny meeting itself.

And you cannot fail to notice that some of the services listed above are anyway council services, already subject to scrutiny. Meanwhile the real ‘things commuters care about’ (fares, punctuality etc) are strangely missing.

Sadly there may be less to this Bill (or at least to Government support for this Bill) than meets the eye.