Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
Plenty of our public services make money from their products and facilities when they are supplied in a way other than for their public service obligation. Hiring of school premises on evenings and weekends immediately springs to mind. Yet that doesn't make our schools or councils "commercial".
It is perfectly reasonable for a public service provider, having fulfilled its obligations to the taxpayer, to find other ways of supplementing its income in order to further enhance its public services.
If BBC Worldwide did not sell products overseas the BBC would have less money and would be able to do less in the UK.
|
Universities are another. Every university does research which is linked with outside companies. The profits generated from that research are usually ploughed back into the Uni and used to improved facilities at the Uni.
Hospitals are yet another. The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital , despite being an NHS hospital, used to have a couple of wards that were only open to private patients. Any profits generated by these wards were ploughed back into the facilities offered to BOTH NHS and private patients.
I would not consider any taxpayer funded University or Hospital to be commercial though.