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Coronavirus

Fulford said:
It's been revealed on Sky that the government are paying £7000 a day to consultants working on the track and trace system. That's the equivalent of earning over £1m per year. Apparently they have already paid out £12m to them for a system that doesn't work.
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The reality is there are many companies and self employed people out there who’s sole objective is to win government contracts, and that’s it. Deliver it? Whatever.

When I was looking for my first job after uni, a guy got in touch with me with a sales role at his company who took on IT contracts for the NHS. I can’t remember exactly what he said as this was a while ago back in 2009, but he said pretty straight up he was going after big lucrative contracts and that was effectively his business. I don’t know if he’s still in business as I can’t remember what they were called, I suspect he made a killing over a few years and then got found out.

I didn’t take that job because it wasn’t what I wanted to do and I didn’t like the sound of it, but the job I did take was at another company with repair contracts for the MOD. It was easily the most lucrative jobs we had versus the private sector work, the paperwork was a killer and payment took a couple of months but it not only paid the bills it paid the dividends.

I have a real dilemma with the public sector, on the one hand it all needs more investment and seems to be crumbling at the seams, and most of the ordinary staff deserve more money. On the other, they are wasteful organisations who simply have to spend a budget to receive a similar budget, and there are lots of people making a lot of money out of them.
 
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Claret & Blue Blood said:
There is the problem - universities. The pubs opened up again on 1st July and no real increase in cases. The universities opened up second week of September and look what happened. It was inevitable that the infections would rise but no one seemed to take much notice. The lecturers union wanted all teaching online but the institutions were afraid that if that happened then there would be breach of contract challenges and they would lose the fee income.
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Just reinforce the point, the Guardian confirms that university locations have higher concentration of infection than the general population.
See the article by McIntyre et al at; https://www.theguardian.com/educati...land-wales-will-spread-into-local-communities
 
danvilla2 said:
The reality is there are many companies and self employed people out there who’s sole objective is to win government contracts, and that’s it. Deliver it? Whatever.

When I was looking for my first job after uni, a guy got in touch with me with a sales role at his company who took on IT contracts for the NHS. I can’t remember exactly what he said as this was a while ago back in 2009, but he said pretty straight up he was going after big lucrative contracts and that was effectively his business. I don’t know if he’s still in business as I can’t remember what they were called, I suspect he made a killing over a few years and then got found out.

I didn’t take that job because it wasn’t what I wanted to do and I didn’t like the sound of it, but the job I did take was at another company with repair contracts for the MOD. It was easily the most lucrative jobs we had versus the private sector work, the paperwork was a killer and payment took a couple of months but it not only paid the bills it paid the dividends.

I have a real dilemma with the public sector, on the one hand it all needs more investment and seems to be crumbling at the seams, and most of the ordinary staff deserve more money. On the other, they are wasteful organisations who simply have to spend a budget to receive a similar budget, and there are lots of people making a lot of money out of them.
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Those big construction contracts are always a scam too. They bid for the project at 10 million and then come in 50m over budget and still get paid.
 
BodyButter said:
Those big construction contracts are always a scam too. They bid for the project at 10 million and then come in 50m over budget and still get paid.
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Well when there’s only a handful of companies in the world like Carillion who can do these jobs, and our government wants it to go to a british company (which to some degree is fair enough if not anti EU regs), if a company gets 80% through the job but has to down tools because the budget has dried up, I think the power is in the suppliers hands because they only have to do the final 20% - and a delay in the timeliness of project, say delivery or Wembley or the stadium West Ham have squatted in, is a bigger PR disaster with the public than an extra couple of hundred million to finish. If you do choose to get rid of that company, you have months of tendering, inductions, finding the resource, doing the health and safety checks, checking the paperwork, before the new company can even get on site and start building.

These contracts are also a web of subcontracts too, even your average builder or decorator with a couple guys is subbing work out left right and centre.

It’s easy to spot the tradesmen that do, they’re the ones happy to pop around, quite chatty, good at selling, not very dirty But quote 10-15% higher than the rest because they’ve made their money with the only outlay visiting you. Fair play to them
 
A few years ago I worked on a NHS tender with one of my customers who were based walking distance from the hospital. They didn't win the tender but had inside knowledge of what was going on. Their bid was for £800k and the winner got it for £1.2m on a like for like basis. Definitely a brown envelope job.
 
Like or loathe the government, but how can there be a situation where a local authority (Manchester) has the power to want to reach an agreement?

There seems to be a lot more social media flak around the government decision making than there was back in March, they lost all goodwill in the spring/summer and now it’s gone completely. There are so many views on the best way to handle it from all corners, because we all know the government doesn’t know even the options let alone which is the best one and is caught between the economy versus health yet seems to do a great job at just getting it wrong, consistently.
 
they should sack the limp biscuit health minister, admit the consultants and the central track and trace is a disaster, and use the systems already in place - and expand them - the local infrastructure through the councils and local health services.
 
Or in other words, if you are going to re-invent the wheel, make sure you make it fucking (Aarrgghhhhhhhh) better not worse (aaarrgggghhhh again)
 
What is it, something like £12m on a system that is still flawed and doesn't work.

And that's before Hancock crowing 24hr test results are on the rise again - despite being only 30% of the first wave totals.
 
mike_field said:
What is it, something like £12m on a system that is still flawed and doesn't work.

And that's before Hancock crowing 24hr test results are on the rise again - despite being only 30% of the first wave totals.
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yes, and the sad fact is it isn't just money, it is lives it has cost.
 
We can but hope eh Wurzel? I did see something ages ago on Newsnight with one expert saying the second waves and mutations of these sorts of viruses are usually weaker.
 
Yes, lets hope, because the way politicians from all sides are using this virus as a proxy for their hatred of each other is disgusting.
 
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