Emergency motion Stephen Bubb Stephen Bubb, Director of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, has played

d a major role in imposing the doctrine of Any qualified provider on the NHS. He referred former Health Minister Andy Burnham to the Cooperation and Competition Panel when Burnham publicly stated that the NHS should be the preferred provider of NHS services, forcing Burnham to back down publicly on this principle. A document recently discovered by online journalist Andrew Robertson shows quite clearly how he used his role as chair of the Futures Forum1 to ensure that the interests of private healthcare companies were served in the carrying through of the Health & Social Care Act. To quote NHS Partners Network/NHS Confederation Director David Worskett in the document: I had one lengthy, very early discussion with Sir Stephen Bubb at which we agreed on the approach he would take [on the Health & Social Care Act], what the key issues are, and how to handle the politics. He has not deviated from this for a moment throughout the period. (NHS Partners Network/NHS Confederation is the major confederation covering private healthcare companies looking to profit from commissioning for NHS services). David Worskett also says in the same document: I also have the impression that the arguments in favour of choice, competition, plurality and economic regulation [i.e. privatisation] put forward by the small handful of like-minded members ably led by Sir Stephen Bubb have often carried the day and won more support than we might have expected. He has done this on the basis that the voluntary sector (as well as the private sector) could gain financially through bidding to carry out public services. All the evidence now emerging shows that voluntary sector groups are being driven out of the bidding wars for the provision of public services for example the Work Programme in favour of the private sector, thus proving the truth of the prediction made several years ago that the voluntary sector simply serves as a stalking horse or a cover for private companies in the privatisation of public services. This conference resolves: 1. To ask Unite to publicise the activities of Stephen Bubb in pushing forward the break-up and marketisation of the NHS to all our members in the organisations which make up the membership of ACEVO. 2. To ask Unite to publicise his activities to all the member organisations of ACEVO (including their Chief Executives and Board members), and call on them to leave that organisation in protest. Note 1: The Futures Forum was the body which oversaw the carrying out of the Coalition governments so-called listening exercise when the outcry against the Health & Social Care Bill forced a pause in its high-velocity passage through parliament.