Not much of an expert then...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7784987.stm

 

He's in the best place to negotiate his own release though.

 

heh, my 2nd favourite story of incompetence today is:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7784868.stm

A "stupendously incompetent" government efficiency drive designed to
save £57m will end up costing £81m, MPs say.

 

Don't think the journalist is much of an expert either.

--
Krusty
www.MuddyStuff.co.uk
Off-Road Classifieds

'02 MV Senna '03 Tiger 955i '96 Tiger '79 Fantic Hiro 250

 

Sounds a lot like the DoH/NHS Employers fiasco. Timeline as follows:

Minister stands up in Parliament and says "we will reduce the costs and
headcount of the DoH".
They do this not by actually cutting headcount but by creating a new
agency (NHS Employers) which is not *actually* part of the DoH but is
still on the Government payroll. They then move significant numbers of
DoH people and projects[1] to the NHS Employers.
Six months down the line (after realising that the DoH can't cope with
the reduced headcount) they hire people to backfill the positions moved
to NHSE.

Thus the total number of people paid by the Government goes up. As do
fixed costs (NHSE needed new buildings which means new plant, new
infrastructure et. al.).

Phil.

[1] The project management responsibility moved but not the budgetary
control. Can you think of a worse situation?

 

That uneducated MP's for you

Boom Boom

 

Easy answer to this problem , take the 81 million out of the civil services
payroll budget .


Its time all government departments were managed as business , you lose money
you lose your pay rises , take a pay cut or potentially lose your job , you
make money you are rewarded by pay rises and bonuses .

 

How much?

 

Stupid idea.

But they are not businesses. Goverments are not there to make a profit
- they are there to govern. The Civil Service is not there to make a
profit - it's there to implement the decisions of Government. And how
do you define "lose money"?

The last thing we want is the civil service being run as a
profit-making business. It's as absurd as requiring the NHS to make a
profit!

Financial prudence != 'making a profit'.

Phil

 

Tho, of course, the work, and therefore the mistakes, were done by
fairly highly educated civil servants.

Oh, you're 'joking'.

 

Fair to say you haven't got a clue about that.

 

The last thing we need is a civil service that is unaccountable when cock ups
of this magnitude happen.

Its our money they are wasting , like any other job thier needs to be
consequency's for this level of failure and the tax payer should not have to
pick up the tab , it should come from within there own budgets .

No ones talking about the civil service making a profit , just not expecting us
to constantly bail them out ,Its called taking responsbility

 

I'll give you a hint here: financial accountability is not a guarenteed
feature of 'making a profit'.

Strong regulation (which they already have in one shape or another -
which is why this was picked up) is unrelated to whether they make a
profit or are run purely as a cost centre.

I *think* I know what you are saying - which is that there needs to be
accountability. Which there is (National Audit Office for a start). And
the law of diminishing return applies - it's pointless spending double
what you would save .. And if the cost of regulation is added to the
budget it very quickly adds up.

What you are talking about isn't responsibility - it's punishment. Sure
- Governments always need some financial oversight - but who pays for
the oversight? The taxpayer..

Phil.

 

Wo said anything about making a profit

The regulation couldnt be that effective its allowed a project put into place
to save 57 million actually to run in the opposite direction to a tune of 81
million


In my books thats put tax payers 138 million out of pocket

Whoever allowed the project to go that far off track needs punishing , and
unfortunatly its not a one off , every major IT project the government gets
involved in has either failed miserably been years late completing or run
massively over budget , sometimes all three .

 

You did. In your original post.

Do you know how little that is in comparison to the overall Civil
Service/Government budget?

And also - this was an attempt to outsource support to a shared service
centre. Those costs are incurred trying to make it work (which failed)
but (in theory) should have yielded big cost savings. The fact it
hasn't doesn't negate the fact that it was a project following the
Governments own guidelines on how to save money (or at the time
anyway).

You really are a nasty little man. And here is another hint since you
seem to be unable to grasp a single, simple point:

Monitoring budgetary compliance costs money. Lots of money. Lots and
lots of money. I'd would make a guess that monitoring things to the
granularity you seem to want would cost a hell of a lot more than 100
million.

And private industry isn't any better. I'd agree that Government IT
projects need to be better run and managed but you don't seem to grasp
the complexity and difficulty of doing it without the monitoring
costing more than the saving..

Phil

 

Yes i do but an old saying springs to mind , look after the pennies and the
pounds look after themselves

Why nasty , i would expect this level of incompetence to result in heads
rolling as would happen to employees in the private sector why on earth should
we tolerate this from civil servants , its so blatantly obvious that whoever
project managed this was not up to the job

Yes monitoring does cost money , however the level of waste within the civil
service just in IT projects alone is probably far higher than the hundred
million you quote

Business have to monitor budgets , costing s , projects and staff every day
there is no reason why the civil service cant do the same at a similar unit
cost , infact on quantities of scale it should be far cheaper

A well written specification along with a properly drawn up commercial contract
would stop many of the problems arising in the first place , unfortunately the
civil service seems unable to do this and we as tax payers end up being stuffed

 

This wasnt funded by the tax payer , it came out of company profits , it would
be unlikely in a commercial enviourement that the company could recover these
costs from its customers , unlike the civil service

 

I think my point is sometimes money saving schemes don't work
irrespective of who funds it. No heads at all rolled for that decision
in the private company I was working for. Your proposal of
'punishment' for mistakes would result in a system where no one would
ever be prepared to make a decision in case they were wrong.

 

Sir Humphrey would be proud.

 

*ding*
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