‘[A] powerful account of the impact of the privatisation of public services…provides a timely and important analysis of this often overlooked feature of public life.’
Who Really Runs Britain?
The Private Companies Taking Control of Benefits, Prisons, Asylum, Deportation, Security, Social Care and the NHS
Alan White‘Outsourcing’ – when will the horror stories stop coming?
Every year the government gives private companies like G4S, Serco, Capita and ATOS £80 billion of taxpayers’ money to handle some of our most sensitive and important services – but where is their transparency?
Immigration is perhaps the most challenging and divisive issue of our time – so why has our government abdicated responsibility?
As privatisation looms over an NHS in crisis, how do we hold these companies to account?
Now, White speaks to campaigners, Whitehall insiders – and the companies themselves.
Who Really Runs Britain? is a shocking compendium of what happens when outsourcing goes wrong – and what we do now.
Reviews
Evening Standard
‘This is a must read…It punctures the myth that the private sector is better at delivering public service.’
Dame Margaret Hodge MP
‘The takeover of government activity by a cartel of unaccountable corporations is a major shift in the way Britain works. Alan White shines a light into this murky world. Everyone is affected by the shadow state. Everyone should read Shadow State.’
Andy Slaughter MP, Shadow Minister for Human Rights
‘In February 2014 the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee published a devastating report on the way in which public services were contracted out to the private sector... Alan White’s well-researched book Shadow State, provides many examples that prove the Committee’s case, and will, I hope, act as an urgently needed call for action, particularly to improve the standard of contracting throughout Whitehall.’
Lord Ramsbotham, former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales
‘Readable and well ordered.’
Literary Review
