Staying with The Who - The Real Me
Carillion collapsing because it was continually awarded contracts knowing it was in trouble.
There was a comment on The Today programme along the lines of the public sector doesn’t really have much of a clue when it comes to managing and awarding contracts … who’d have guessed.
You have to feel sorry for the people who work for them and myriad of sub contractors.
Mercifully, Carillion wasn’t awarded the glider recovery contract…
It’s like G4S continually being awarded contracts despite its abject failure at the Olympics!
While they may not have got the main contract, if something they are involved with, related to the glider contract in some way, it could mess things up, even if they are sub-contractors. Replacing a sub contractor takes time as you need to do the background work, which is why contract managers in the public and private sector tend to go with who they know already. Which today when so much of the “service” work, such as engineering, catering, cleaning, IT support type work is contracted out just to reduce headcount, is a worry.
We contracted out canteen and cleaning many years ago and it is has seen a drop in the quality.
It seems Carillion like so many companies of this type have their fingers in a lot of pies and could have picked up sub-contracts for things.
Take Serco as another for instance.
Part of the problem with government contracts is that you are limited to “approved suppliers” I can understand why this was done, it was to prevent the Del Boy style of awarding contract where everyone gets a few quid in their back pocket.
The problem is that once you are an approved supplier you can take the mickey, I know of a Train Station which needed a new kitchen, it was 2 floor level cupboard with a worktop and sink on top and a replacement urn on the wall, all the power and plumbing was in plac, all that was needed was old one out and identical new one in, it cost them £40K in parts and labour and their isn’t even anyone getting a drink out of it! Just look at the bodge jobs from RFCA contractors that we have to put up with for similar examples.
Approved suppliers happen in the private sector and seen equally as a gravy train.
We had one general maintenance contractor for years, then we got a new one, as the old one thought they were able to just get paid for work, which sounds pretty much like station kitchen. The old one re-tendered for the contract and apparently even though they were cheaper they didn’t get it.
Mind you I know people who work in construction doing council work and hospitals and they’ve said if the people employed to do the planning etc, had a clue, they’d save millions. One a contracts manager said he’s not even sure the people he deals with understand planning law, as he’s had to return work to them to make it legal.
Part of me would rather it was the other way round, use who you want and don’t take the mickey with your kick backs! That kitchen would probably have only cost the Railway £20K that way and the staff Christmas party would have been fully funded out of the cost! 
It is like this example of paying £22 for 65p lightbulbs…
its is so frustrating to hear and read news like this overspend - at no point as any Government indicated the MOD, hospitals, schools or the like are overflowing with money and budgets are squeezed year after year, administration after administration yet this behaviour is allowed to carry on…
As a civil servant struggling to get basic office equipment (like a desk) due to budget cuts this sort of thing really annoys me. Our procurement people have no idea what they are doing and waste so much money
This isnt new.Back in my Air Force days companies would charge £5 for very small plastic clips for telephone keypads.The MOD even then were adept at squadering public money.Three years of my time were wasted on the AEW Nimrod project which ended up costing £700 million(£1.5 Billion at todays prices) by the time the so called experts gave up on it.Or the Tornado F2 pushed into service without any AI radar but a lump of concrete in the nose(aka blue circle radar).
A desk? It’s called a laptop for a reason. Jeez…
The problem with the Carillion debacle is the ripple effect, that might not be felt immediately. I’m fully expecting something to affect the ATC to come to light.
As for wasting money hand over fist and then bleating “we don’t have any money” is an annual public sector ritual. One of neighbours has said their parents have several crutches and walking frames after times spent in hospital. Can they return them, no, as apparently H&S has decreed everyone has to have a new one. What do they do with the old ones if they collect them, scrap them. I wonder how many ‘nurses’ this could pay for?
We used to have 3 stationery firms and now we have one, where preferential rates have been agreed. We pay for instance £8 for 2500 sheets of A4, £1 for 20 ball point pens and £1 for a box of 12 dry wipe pens. We also have printers on a contract basis, which gets everything including servicing. Which has turned out much cheaper than doing things on an individual basis.
The MOD is tasked with saving £10 thousand million, which I’m sure they could easily, without cutting anything or anyone. It might just mean some pension enhancing brown envelopes are no longer forthcoming.
When I was a kid, the dad of one of my mates was a clerk of works and their house always looked nice, his dad had new cars and they went on foreign holidays. It wasn’t until I was older I realised what had been going on.
Tsk, tsk, bad for your health! 
Use your laptop on a stable base where there is support for your arms, and not on your lap.
As if the concept of having 2 independent radars, integrating the feeds, adding the extra cooling. & numerous other issues, wasn’t going to work… Oh, & picking up anything moving at more than 10 mph & allocating it a track number!
Flews a variety of sorties against it, all good fun.
There’s a squadron in my wing who’s building is managed by Carillion.
was managed…
Pfft Health and safety. What eva