Meagre food packages for kids on free school meals. A £22bn track and trace system that isn’t fit for purpose. And people asked to travel hundreds of miles for a Covid test. What do all of these things have in common? They’ve all been outsourced to the private sector.

But why are these vital services being run by the private sector? Are the allegations of cronyism true? And who’s making money out of all this?

Ayeisha is joined by New Statesman’s Britain editor, Anoosh Chakelian and David Hall, founder of the Public Services International Research Unit at the University of Greenwich.

For more on this area, you can listen to a previous episode we did with Cat Hobbs, director of We Own It campaign, Hilary Wainwright, co-editor of Red Pepper magazine and Sahil Dutta from Goldsmiths University on Public Ownership: https://soundcloud.com/weeklyeconomicspodcast/public-ownership-20

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Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone.

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The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org