Wheeldon should get the Buckles treatment
Just as respectable physicists once believed in the luminiferous ether, the mainstream commentariat has long been bewitched by the notion that public services are better and more efficiently run by organisations energised by the profit motive. A neoliberal article of faith for both main parties in recent years, it was always nonsense; but it provided (and still provides) useful cover for those who wish to encourage the private sector plunder of state assets.
Former prime minister Harold Macmillan, one of that seemingly extinct breed of one-nation Tory, called it ‘selling off the family silver’.
‘We’ve never had it so bad,’ to paraphrase the former PM. But as with the luminiferous ether, only the steady and relentless accretion of evidence has begun to convince the proselytisers that they have been worshipping a false god. So we have seen: water companies that ban hosepipes when we are knee deep in water, because there’s no ‘shareholder value’ in fixing leaks; energy suppliers jacking up prices to record highs amid soaring fuel poverty; and train companies whose fares are among the most expensive in the world, even though they pocket far higher subsidies than did the late - if not greatly lamented - British Rail.
And now - let’s be frank, there’s terrible comedy in it - the darling of the new securocracy, G4S, has to be bailed out by our exhausted and greatly put-upon squaddies to rescue the Olympics. This at a time when the coalition is about to reduce the army’s capacity to its lowest level since the Napoleonic Wars.
The parallels with the courtroom interpreting shambles appear irresistible. Here was a contract let to one of that fast-growing breed of aggressively expanding outsourcers (Applied Language Solutions, subsequently Capita) which has gone badly wrong. It seems the provider couldn’t get enough people to work for it, because the work was fleeting and the pay too low. And the public sector has been left to absorb the costs and muddle on, as of course it must.
What’s worse, even though it’s your money, government is coy about disclosing financial details, citing that weaseling get-out clause ‘commercial confidentiality’. The official enquiry into this sorry mess is long overdue. But written evidence is not enough. As the paper which broke the story, the Gazette would like to see Gavin Wheeldon, late of Applied Language Solutions and Capita, and other parties involved summoned before MPs to explain themselves - just like G4S chief executive Nick Buckles. Nothing less will do.
Paul Rogerson is Gazette editor-in-chief
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Comments
Well said !
Thank you for articulating a view that deserves to be common currency amongst the many millions who rightly reject the profoundly destructive ideology that has brought powerful people of questionable values near to the heart of Government , and those millions who will suffer directly from the new Victorian era planned for us; the fact that it is not (yet) a source of mass anger is due to the steady impoverishment and debasement of popular political culture by the trite, shallow, philistine, venal priorities of the billionaire press; the idea that change is impossible as they`re all the same.
Regrettably therefore it will (as usual ) be left up to a series of grotesque spectacles of failure and the damage to ordinary lives, that will force the issue onto the tables of the oblivious !
It is not just Wheeldon....the civil servants of Interpretation
It is not just Wheeldon who should get the Buckles treatment
It should be first and foremost the civil servants of MoJ's Interpretation Project, which conceived, nurtured and brought the offspring that is Language Services Framework Agreement unto the justice world.
Don't place the blame of Wheeldon....he is just one clever "wheeler-dealer" who managed to persuade the MoJ into giving his company this contract by promising them Moon, with no capacity to deliver it.
He then flogged his company to Capita for a reported nice tidy sum of £7.5 million BEFORE the company was to begin the delivery of the Framework Contract, and before the inherent inability to deliver the contract became glaringly obvious.... He got his timing perfectly right....
He even managed to collect 6 months worth of CEO salary from Capita, before "leaving ALS / Capita by mutual agreement to pursue other interests"....what can I say....good on ya, mate.....
May be he is the only winner from this whole mess that the Framework Agreement is.
After all the buck stops with MoJ Interpretation Project civil servants....they found ALS on the margins of language services industry, they took it through procurement process, they made recommendations to Ministers to adopt the Framework, knowing that responsible Ministers will just rubber-stamp it, to this day they cover up and turn blind eyes to persistent failures of their own contractor to deliver .......
One other person might have also got their timing right in relation to this Framework.....
Some "evil tongues" are saying that one of the key procurement officials at the MoJ, responsible for approving the Framework Agreement from procurement point of view, left the MoJ soon after the contract was awarded to Wheeldon's ALS and emigrated far-far away....in fact as far away as one can possible emigrate....to New Zealand....
Well to be fair Mikhail i did
Well to be fair Mikhail i did see all the main parties involved should be brought to public account. But you're right, government procurement is just one disaster after another. The truth is the lawyers and accountants for the outsourcers run rings around Sir Humphrey and his ilk; and the politicians are genetically predisposed to favour any private sector option. Was it not Cameron himself who called civil servants the 'enemies of enterprise', an extraordinary slur that utterly degrades the notion of public service. New Labour's attitude was identical. The civil servants know what is expected of them.
It is not that lawyers and accountants run rings...
It is not that lawyers and accountants run rings around Sir Humphreys....
The problem is rooted much deeper....it is not that Sirs Humphreys don't know how to manage the outsourced contracts...the problem is that Sirs Humphreys don't want to do their work, they want to outsource it, and then just sit there "managing the contract" (or appearing to manage the contract).
In my previous life I worked for a company, which was managing Business Link franchise in one of the counties "oop Norf".
When I started work there, I was amazed to learn, that all the Business Link centres in that county, were in fact premises of this company, under Business Link brand, staffed with the staff of this company and they were performing the Business link functions of assisting small enterprises and enterpreneurs under the Business Link brand.
What surprised me even more was the fact that the local Business Link for that county does not provide ANY services directly to small businesses.
All it does is it tenders the contract to do the actual work of the Business Link to private providers, every 2 or 3 years and then just monitors and manages the contract....
No one I worked with could remember whether the times when Business Link was actually working directly with small businesses. All it appears to do was to secure annual budget, top slice 20-25% of that to pay their salaries and fund their premises, and then just outsource the actual work that they are supposed to be doing to private providers. Then for the next 2-3 years you just "monitor" and "manage" the contract.
How could Business Link staff effectively manage and monitor the delivery of the contract since there appear to have been no one there who actually remembered what working with small businesses was like is beyond me.
This trend appears to have come to its logical conclusion....
Civil (and public) servants just don't want to do what they are there for....they don't want to deliver public service.....like the legendary Sir Humphrey (I watched all the episodes BTW), their main and exciting task appears to be to secure as much budget as possible, top-slice enough money to pay themselves good comfortable salaries and perks, outsource the sordid delivery of actual work to private providers (out of sight out of mind) for the next few years and then enjoy the leisurely time of "monitoring" and "managing" the contract (in the way that MoJ does with the Framework) for the next few years until you have to go through the motions of re-tendering the contract.....In order to make everyone's life easier and so as not to strain one's self too much in the course of "conducting rigorous procurement exercise" you just give the contract again to the same company, who is going to "recycle their tender" from 3 years ago, and Sir Humphrey will just "recycle" the tender scoring documents...
Back to that Business Link example.....
No one who worked there could remember when was the last time Business Link of that county actually engaged with small businesses.....and no one could remember when was the last time any other company run the Business Link franchise for that county other than the company where I worked at the time.....
Yes, state run services are
Yes, state run services are just so much better aren't they?
No patient dies of thirst in the NHS because nobody gave a dam did they? Oh, hang on.
The point is not who owns the "provider" but whether the people working for it are committed to something more than just the money. That used to be called "a profession". Let's see how ABS's pan out shall we-probably like the banks is my bet.
Which ignores the crucial
Which ignores the crucial point that directors of private companies are legally bound to serve shareholder interests above all others - and abundant evidence suggests that they do, to the detriment of the public interest. It's beside the point to say people working for a private sector provider might be 'committed to something more than the money'. Perhaps they might, but that's not what they are there for. They are given jobs to make money for the owners of the business, whether they be private equity, quoted, or whatever. If they don't, they'll be sacked, regardless of how good, bad or indifferent the service they provide to the public sector. Profit trumps all other considerations.
The public sector is incapable of informed procurement
Mikhail Svetloff is very much to be agreed with. You couldn't make it up:
"We promise to save you £60m, please give it to us" - said ALS
"That's a lot more than any other bid, but we'll take it" - said the MoJ
Simplistic yet accurate. They and their identical twin "thebigword" seem to want to promise the earth, yet once a contract is awarded, nobody within procurement is held responsible for the failure to actually look into such promises and realise that they are shored-up on "best endeavours" get-outs, ambiguities and down right embellishments.
You would have thought procurement colleagues were wise to lies by now. When a company says "we will cost £15" and everyone else is at least 20% higher, you need to objectively scrutinise both the existing business model and the proposed one.
And it's not rocket science:
"How much will you charge us"
"How much will you pay your interpreters / security staff"
"How many interpreters / security staff do you CURRENTLY pay at this rate"
Lack of Common Sense rather than Public versus Private Sector
When it comes to the reform by MoJ of the public service interpreting, the case is not entirely about public sector doing a better job than the private one or vice versa. Instead, it is about, the lack of common sense in continuing with a reform, that was based on very little data from the ground, guided by the dogma of outsourcing and the arrogance of not listening to many people who advised against it.
The provision of public service interpreting consists mainly of two components; the interpreting and the administration side of it. Until February 2012, the private sector covered the interpreting– the self-employed interpreters and the public sector the administrative side of it – crudely put, the listing offices did the bookings, and the finance departments made the payments.
It can be argued that the self-employed interpreter, because of the nature of the work, is the best-suited person to perform these services. The administrative side of it was carried out by the public sector, but it will be very hard to argue that the private sector is unable to offer efficiently run booking and payroll services. It is not difficult to build a case of the supremacy of the private sector. If you add here concepts like streamlining, efficiency, outsourcing and pressure to control rising costs, you get the background to the existing FWA shaped by the previous administration – the Labour government – which was followed to a tee by the MoJ. We get Crispin Blunt, Martin Jones and the Interpretation Project that dreamt of outsourcing all the provision of interpreting and still save 30%. They want the agency to run all the booking and the finance and to provide adequate interpreters and deliver savings. In other words, they want the impossible. Clearly, ALS were fools for agreeing to these terms, but the idiots who got us in this mess are not in Oldham. They are in the Whitehall.
Working out the economics of the reform; get the lowest bidder to run the whole thing, pay interpreters the same as the security guards, hide behind the austerity drive and nothing will stop us.
Personally, I am not in the slightest bothered whether Gavin Wheeldon is brought in front of the Select Committee. He has had his fair share of humiliation in so many courts up and down the country when asked to appear to account for failure to provide interpreters who delayed trials and family court proceedings. In my view, he is the most humble millionaire whom I have come across. And he had the brains to jump ship at the right moment ( when it is drowning).
However, I would love to see there squirming under committee’s questioning especially Crispin Blunt, the arrogant who even among the biggest failure of the new system still badmouths the old one, the coward who talked nationally on the radio about interpreters abusing the system but when challenged as on what evidence he did so, has still to give an answer. Same thing goes for the whole of the Interpretation Project, the team that spent two years and loads of money getting us into this fine mess.
At the moment, there are the accountants of the National Audit Office working out if the new system is a good deal for the taxpayer and the MPs represented by the Justice Select Committee who are unconvinced by the whole thing and want to dig deeper. I can see the cracks in this FWA getting bigger and bigger, and I know for certain that it won’t be long before the rotten thing comes down crumbling.
Until then, I will continue to do my duty, the one that conscience tells me to do; boycott this agreement to the very end.
We definitelly have to get
We definitelly have to get rid of irregular behaviours from our Institutions and Entities
The above misses much of the
The above misses much of the point. Outsourcing is designed to restrain the power of the public sector unions. Neither David Cameron, nor David Milliband want to be beholden to Bob Crowe and his ilk.