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Carillion

Mullardman said:
'Sigh..... Once more with feeling...

This government has one policy objective and one only, namely to transfer every last penny of public spending into private hands'.

Did I mention that?

What is almost more disturbing about Hunt is that slightly deranged permanent semi-smile on his face. He looks like a Supermarionation puppet.

(IMHO.. obviously)

Mull
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Just quoting myself. From 4 years ago and by no means my first statement to this effect. It is as true now as ever.
 
richgilb said:
Oh so we only need to compare to other countries' waste, not use common sense? Having worked in 6 countries in my life (UK, Thailand, Malaysia,Australia, France, Germany), I am happy to say that the UK is the least bureaucratic and easy place to get things done of all six. Rest on one's laurels if you like, but I see room for improvement.
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I've only worked in the UK and Thailand out of those - the UK as part of the EU.

Here is what you experience in Thailand. You cannot get staff or workers because of stupid immigration laws and an ongoing shortage of a skilled domestic work force. The staff you can find have no need to excel at their job or to put in that little extra for your client or business.

You cannot get plumbers, builders, electricians or anyone to fix anything because the few that are "home grown" are inundated with work and can charge whatever they like, just to turn up whenever they want.The workmanship is shoddy due to a lack of competition.

Imported goods cost twice what they should do because of ridiculous duties imposed as part of being an independent trading nation and locally manufactured items are hopelessly unreliable. Finally, health and safety is non existent, workers rites are totally non existent, pensions don't exist for the majority and healthcare costs an absolute fortune whilst not being provided by the state.

Inequality is even greater than that seen in the UK currently with the top few percent of the population hoarding most of the wealth whilst many have no home and beg for food or a day's work.

Welcome to Tory led, post Brexit Britain Rich I'm just experiencing it a decade or so earlier....

In any society there will always be waste and corruption. The question is whether the waste in the public sector costs the taxpayer more than the corruption and tax dodging in the private sector? Answer that with facts to back up the assertion and I might take the position more seriously.
 
richgilb said:
How can I give evidence, I was an employee. It's all anecdotal, based on experience. Example, though. My job was a complete waste of space. The companies only wanted the grant, not the advice. We could have done it all by phone, but the DTI insisted on face to face for every client. Meaning I sometimes flew to Glasgow to talk about funding for maybe £1,000.
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Well OK, I can't argue with that, but is it primarily a function of the public sector, or of govt policy?
I shall return later to describe how an extremely efficient organisation was destroyed and replaced with one which was privatised and much less efficient, before becoming finally destroyed altogether.
 
Mullardman said:
Well OK, I can't argue with that, but is it primarily a function of the public sector, or of govt policy?
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The two are inseparable, surely? ISTR from my time working in HE that the tendering rules were becoming ever more cumbersome. Obviously the aim was to ensure transparency, a level playing field etc etc, but the end result was a lot of paperwork and wasted time (for both 'us' and 'them') forcing suppliers of goods and services to jump through a series of hoops.
 
What the NAO said about PFI in 2011, much of it based on New Labour decisions. https://www.nao.org.uk/press-release/lessons-from-pfi-and-other-projects-2/

The case for using private finance in public procurement needs to be challenged more, given the spending watchdog’s previous analysis that the cost of debt finance has increased since the credit crisis by 20 per cent to 33 per cent. Also, under the national accounting rules, privately financed projects will often still be off balance-sheet which may continue to act as an incentive to use PFI. The NAO concludes that, in the current climate, the use of private finance may not be as suitable for as many projects as it has been in the past.
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merlin said:
I've only worked in the UK and Thailand out of those - the UK as part of the EU.

Here is what you experience in Thailand. You cannot get staff or workers because of stupid immigration laws and an ongoing shortage of a skilled domestic work force. The staff you can find have no need to excel at their job or to put in that little extra for your client or business.

You cannot get plumbers, builders, electricians or anyone to fix anything because the few that are "home grown" are inundated with work and can charge whatever they like, just to turn up whenever they want.The workmanship is shoddy due to a lack of competition.

Imported goods cost twice what they should do because of ridiculous duties imposed as part of being an independent trading nation and locally manufactured items are hopelessly unreliable. Finally, health and safety is non existent, workers rites are totally non existent, pensions don't exist for the majority and healthcare costs an absolute fortune whilst not being provided by the state.

Inequality is even greater than that seen in the UK currently with the top few percent of the population hoarding most of the wealth whilst many have no home and beg for food or a day's work.

Welcome to Tory led, post Brexit Britain Rich I'm just experiencing it a decade or so earlier....

In any society there will always be waste and corruption. The question is whether the waste in the public sector costs the taxpayer more than the corruption and tax dodging in the private sector? Answer that with facts to back up the assertion and I might take the position more seriously.
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It goes to show how unreasonably bleak the remain outlook is if you think the UK will be 10 years behind Thailand. The good thing about working in Thailand was that if I ever hit a wall of bureaucracy, there was always a smiling Somchai in view that could remove these hurdles for a very reasonable fee. Worked for me. I remember paying about 50 quid tea money at customs once to get a shed load of stuff through. No more than 5 quid for a traffic violation. Brilliant!
 
Mullardman said:
Well OK, I can't argue with that, but is it primarily a function of the public sector, or of govt policy?
I shall return later to describe how an extremely efficient organisation was destroyed and replaced with one which was privatised and much less efficient, before becoming finally destroyed altogether.
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I know they exist. It's not all bad. But you suggested that it was mostly good.
 
I don't claim any expertise in tendering or contracting. But then I don't really need any. It is patently obvious that since Thatcher first started the privatisation process, all sorts of wheezes and 'financial gymnastics', from 'internal markets', to PFI and Carillion/Crapita type outsourcing have been employed. Just a glance at the Rail fiasco and the energy supply chaos should tell any sane person all they need to know about Tory 'logic'. And yes, I accept that Nu Lab were not blameless either.

However you dress it up, the main thrust has been the Tory obsession with 'rolling back the state'. They may dress it up as ideology.. or some sort of belief system. They may pretend that their objective is 'efficiency', or lower taxes, or whatever else. But the end result is pretty much always the same. Public money goes into private hands ( and I don't mean ordinary workers, I mean Fat Cats) and the services which the public money is supposed to be purchasing become progressively worse.

The Tory spivs have been pulling this stunt now for almost 40 years and the average British voter still isn't joining the dots.
 
I really don't think there's much difference between private and public; the difference is between big and small. The bigger they are, the more they waste, the more unaccountable people are and the harder it is to can them or let them fail.
 
Whitehall’s crown commercial representative for Carillion “rotated off” the now-collapsed government contractor last summer, the civil service chief executive John Manzoni admitted yesterday.

The firm, which has around 450 contracts with government, went into liquidation on Monday after it issued two profit warnings, the first of which was in July last year. Government has been under fire for continuing to award contracts to Carillion despite the warnings.

Manzoni, who also serves as Cabinet Office permanent secretary, said Carillion had not been monitored by a crown rep during the months in which it was struggling under £900m of debt. But he insisted that the bulk of supplier engagement work was done by a full time team dedicated to Carillion, headed by a more junior strategic partnership manager.
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But he's still confodent that things might be reasonably OK. :rolleyes: https://www.civilserviceworld.com/a...-commercial-rep-months-despite-profit-warning
 
Patrick Dixon said:
I really don't think there's much difference between private and public; the difference is between big and small. The bigger they are, the more they waste, the more unaccountable people are and the harder it is to can them or let them fail.
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I suspect there is some correlation...but I suspect there is a bit more going on in the public sector. And before you ask, I have no evidence.
 
Pretty much every political thread leads me to the same answer... that we desperately need Corbyn in power. Re-nationalise everything the tories privatised, preferably without compensation, set up a national bank of reconstruction, reverse pretty much every law passed since 1979 (allowing the unions to be powerful again, legal aid to return, raves to go ahead etc etc, any council houses not sold to no longer be under "right to buy" etc).
Take the power from the powerful and the money from the wealthy! If there is an exodus of billionaires and big companies that's fine. They are parasites anyway and nature abhors a vacuum so others of better morals can soon replace them (the better morals bit will of course need enforcing).
The very idea that 1% of the people could "own" 50% of the wealth is anathema and must be reversed as should the whole "system" that allows this to happen. Talkin 'bout a revolution :) This country needs running for the good of the many, not the personal gain of the few.
 
Take the train back to Tobleronistan, you bleedin' comoonist!

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richgilb said:
It goes to show how unreasonably bleak the remain outlook is if you think the UK will be 10 years behind Thailand.
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No one said that. I stated that the general conditions were likely to resemble the model I see here. If you would like to counter that Rich I'm all ears.

I'd be happy to put £100 on it with you and revisit in a decade and see who is closer to the outcome of Brexit.

You are right about the bureaucracy though. Few pay taxes. Police take bribes. Customs take bribes. There's no planning. No health care worth talking about and no health and safety regulations to save employees from harm - sorry I meant pay cuts...
 
Joe Hutch said:
Up to about four years ago.
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I think you'll find things are much the same, although I think as a sector we have got better practised at the tendering stuff. Whilst I am not at the core of the tendering processes, I do regularly see them from the margins and often wonder about the efficiency.
 
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