That is why the designer of the scheme, Portman Capital, is stressing that it believes the main argument for privatising in this unprecedented way is that it would actually maximise proceeds for the Exchequer, in the short term at least - which is not as paradoxical as it may seem.
The argument made by ministers - of the previous government and this one - is that a redundancy scheme that gives staff a pay-off of up to six years their salary is overly generous in the current economic environment.