Capita
- Thread starter RubyBlue
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DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
endemic corruption at that level of government contract bidding
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
G4s, formerly group four. Incompetents. Remember the olympics fiasco
Similarly with SERCO
Ted Striker
Foot's on the other hand
You've spelt their name wrong
pocketscience
Well-Known Member
ATOS, Accenture..
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
There is a group of "service provider" companies. All are equally-inept, all are equally corrupt and all have a list of failed contracts behind them longer than Cindy Crawford's legs.
So, why do they get "repeat business"? Because they have constructed networks among the consultancies that central government and local authorities use when setting up contracts for tender; because they've constructed networks within central and local government; because all those giant-sized firms by up or buy out independent opposition, making hiring them"the only game in town"; because being "the only game in town", they have all the leverage that a secure income from the state gives them.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Missing an "r".
JHE
.
Two things determine how successful these companies are.
- Are they good at writing bids that impress the relevant civil servants and ministers? The companies employ and develop expert bid-writers. These marketing folk are sometimes even paid well. What they write may be 80% bollocks, but people who believe in this way of providing public services are keen (or at least willing) to be taken in.
- Are they meeting or appearing to meet their targets? This is often a very different matter from providing a good service.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
The latter was, admittedly some time ago, quite a respectable consultancy firm. How the mighty are fallen, etc.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I suspect that the mere fact that they are familiar is enough.
And, personally, I think that there is not enough accountability about the selection of such companies, which means that a minister can keep using a company it suits him/her (for whatever reason) to use, without having to be concerned with the repercussions if the company fails to deliver/goes tits up/hands back its contract and walks away.
I thought the point of outsourcing was to transfer an element of the risk to external companies, at a slight premium on cost. What we seem to have ended up with is a system where we keep the risk, and pay rather bigger than "slight" premiums for the privilege.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
What are they called now?
8den
No I'm pretty sure that was 8ball...
Christ getting people back into work should not be a profit making business.
Another example would be whatever Group4 is now called.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
There are only a few companies big enough and with enough experience to have capacity to bid for large scale outsourcing projects in the UK:
Crapita, Serco, G4S
Hence why when they fuck up they still get work.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
My stepdaughter worked for a company which got taken over by Crapita, and what ensued could be mistaken for an approach designed to drive anyone with any motivation, initiative, or pride in their work out of the company. After she realised, on a number of successive occasions, that she was going to need to slow her work rate right down if she was to avoid becoming seriously unpopular with her colleagues, she ended up doing (to her mind) about 50% of what she felt she could easily do. Then, a series of minor, probably stress-related, periods of sickness later (after all of which she was solely responsible for catching up on her workload and the stuff foisted on her by colleagues, which she did easily), she was hauled in for a disciplinary interview and told "We're not interested in your work record, which is excellent; this is your first warning about your sickness record. Take any more time off sick, and you're going to be up for the chop".
At which point she started looking in earnest for work elsewhere. After she handed in her notice, her manager told her, at someone else's leaving do, that she had better not come back wanting her job back, as they took a dim view of her "disloyalty". The only other competent person in the department had already left, as a result of which the rest of the Capita lead-swinging drones in the department took it very much amiss that she was deserting them.
Suffice it to say, she left with few regrets, and her eyes just a little wider open. And is now very happily employed working for a university, in a much nicer environment. The boyfriend's still stuck there, though...
At which point she started looking in earnest for work elsewhere. After she handed in her notice, her manager told her, at someone else's leaving do, that she had better not come back wanting her job back, as they took a dim view of her "disloyalty". The only other competent person in the department had already left, as a result of which the rest of the Capita lead-swinging drones in the department took it very much amiss that she was deserting them.
Suffice it to say, she left with few regrets, and her eyes just a little wider open. And is now very happily employed working for a university, in a much nicer environment. The boyfriend's still stuck there, though...
Chick Webb
Countryfile and a can
I'd say it's because they're cheap. They're cheap because they're shit. That's all I'm going to say about them since I used to work for them!
This. Despite all of their assorted failures, successive governments, national and local, are wedded to the outsourcing ideology and so that ties their hands in terms of who can get the contracts.
I believe some of the directors of certain companies may have links to current or past governments too, which would help.
likesfish
You can't park here sir
Crapita are doing their bit for world peace
.
They have after being given the contract to run recruiting for the army reserve managaged to recuit 12 in over a year
.
This complicated task used to be done by very odd civil service admin officers at local ta centres and used to take a fortnight tops the average wait is nobody knows because people get bored and give up
.
But this billion pound contract is efficent and highly effective even though it doesnt actually produce recruits
.They have after being given the contract to run recruiting for the army reserve managaged to recuit 12 in over a year
.This complicated task used to be done by very odd civil service admin officers at local ta centres and used to take a fortnight tops the average wait is nobody knows because people get bored and give up
.But this billion pound contract is efficent and highly effective even though it doesnt actually produce recruits
I remember some years ago while researching PFI, coming across on the net some documentation from one of these companies, I cannot remember if it was CAPITA or SERCO, but in the middle was a page about company long term aims. One of these aims was to influence government policy. This in the context of PFI bidding.
JHE
.
Yes, that's a fair point.
But I think it's sometimes a very wide version of that. I mean sometimes it's not the wisdom of this or that (often junior) minister choosing this or that bidder that could be judged lacking, but a much-publicised chunk of government policy.
In the Welfare to Work sector, companies have repeatedly failed to reach their targets. Whole programmes with many 'prime providers' and a host of sub-contractors failed to meet their targets (even when some of them may have been fiddling the paperwork a bit to make themselves look better and get more income). Failing to meet targets? Massively failing? Never mind, the targets get changed! Individual companies can be allowed to fail and get gobbled by competitors, but the government doesn't want all the major players to fail at once, exposing its policy as an expensive mistake.
The biggest of these programmes included New Deal, followed by Flexible New Deal and then, with extra fanfare, the Tories' Work Programme. Various reports came out from time to time saying that these programmes had little or no impact on people getting or not getting jobs. It seems that the bulk of the people who got jobs would have got those jobs without the government doling out dumper truck loads of dosh to the companies who claimed to have expertise in getting people into work, "overcoming barriers", getting people "closer to the labour market" blah blah blah. But for government and biz it's best not to admit it. They continue ernestly to discuss the emperor's new clothes and pat themselves on the back for their design and tailoring skills.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Bet you a pound to a pinch of shit that these companies have sat around a table and agreed on a shit level of performance which will generate most profits whilst costing least, agreeing on it means that none get awarded the contract over the other, thus avoiding a costly race to the top.
josef1878
Well-Known Member
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Cartelisation?
Wouldn't surprise me. Big Pharma have form for doing similar with regard to pricing, as does big ag and the chemicals industry.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
From six months ago, please see:
Outsourcing has gone too far - says Sir Rod Aldridge, the ex-Capita boss who started the revolution
Outsourcing has gone too far - says Sir Rod Aldridge, the ex-Capita boss who started the revolution
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