Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I speak from personal experience from the 'client side' of a contracting out process.
Considerable savings can be achieved alongside better services provided that the contract is properly drawn and the correct levels of contract supervision with appropriate contract penalties are included for failing to meet specification. When it was re tendered it worked very well, so well in fact that there were letters to the paper congratulating DDC on the way the streets looked. So the result a significantly reduced cost and better service. the same kind of thing happened with the loo cleaning contract and, from memory the first one ended early with a much better second contract. The first sports centre contract likewise - we made a substantial capital injection into the centre and asked tenderers to also make proposals to put capital into the centre. The winner chose to improve the bar facilities and the overall result, taking into account the capital spent, was a big improvement in the centre at a much, much lower running cost.
So you can parrot your left wing sources Mark, Howard etc but I know first hand about this subject and whatever you claim, done properly it works brilliantly.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Done Properly are the key words. No cronyism or brown envelopes. No going for second best because it's cheap.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Naturally Peter and their are strict procedures for local government within my experience, to ensure that. Government has a duty to ensure that they too set equally strict procedures in their activities the real debate here should be around whether those procedures for government are good enough, transparent enough and are properly applied. I personally, from what I have seen, think there is room for a fair bit of tightening in that respect.
God yes! And even though some of the time consuming faff in the current public sector reprovisioning can become tedious, on reflection it is better than getting it wrong...........
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
Going back to my point Barry, why could you not hire in musicians for the Royal Marines band?
There are many musicians across Europe that could easily undercut the bandsmen and save the MoD a packet.
Why would this be any worse?
I appreciate that I am being slightly disingenuous about this, but I feel an answer might prompt a number of questions.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Barry/Bern, one problem is that so many of those procedures are there to ensure backsides are covered and not to ensure a high quality outcome.
Darren you are being naughty.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
Maybe Peter, but surely you see where I am going with this!
This is not just about how much things cost or 'value for money' (a term more suited to a good pair of shoes)
But it isn't!! You are doing what Reg et al did and taking an unfamiliar phrase and dumbing it down. Value for money is what I think you want for your taxes. I am assuming you don't want a bad deal? And that should not mean poor quality. Peter is partly right - at the moment there are large areas of public sector organisations devoted to keeping themselves in a job or at least not managing out poor performers - that means you are paying, in your taxes, for poor performers and a bad deal. That in no way implies undercutting the Marines, or any other public sector service - it means getting the best out of them. Quality and value for money are not mutually exclusive even though there are areas of public service that do demonstrate that - that is because they are not well run.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
I think you may misunderstand my direction here.
Much as I do not want to seem confrontational Bern, I think that you dumbed it down by suggesting that it could mean the same as 'purely about money', which of course is a term that can, and often is, mutually exclusive from quality.
I totally agree with many of your points but think this is about far more, as I do with the NHS. Barry often mentions the emotions that blur logic when talking about such things, but it is these very emotions that instill more in us than economics. We have to consider what we are doing on more levels than just 'value for money', a term that really requires no dumbing down at all.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
was it wilde that said a philistine was someone that knew the price of everything and the value of nothing?
if not him it might have been noel edmonds.
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
I also find it amusing that Barry used the image of Robocop in his blog. The film explores the failing of the privatisation. Ultimately suggesting that the prime directive of a corporate enterprise is often in conflict with that of public servants. It is only when 'Officer Murphy' is able to redefine his prime directive that he able to act in the interests of the public.
I used to love that film as a kid, although a bit far fetched...not unlike some of the policies we are seeing at the moment.
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,707
So the public wins because the police outsource non-frontline roles to third parties
The public is reassured because the SLA's and penalty clauses are all stitched up wonderfully tight
So how does the third party make money?
Oh yes by paying their workers carrying out police roles less in terms of total package than the police officers currently doing it, which of course means lower tax and NI take, less discretionary spending and therefore less VAT etc etc
But hey it cost us less in direct fees so it must be good for all of us
And before you ask I also have direct experience of numerous outsourcing contracts in financial services and most of them end in tears
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
I speak from personal experience too. I lived in Wandsworth (Tory flagship borough with the lowest Poll Tax in the country) where the waste contractors were changed almost as often as the bins were emptied as they were unable to fulfil the obligations of their contracts. At the same time the visible stuff (pavements/lighting etc) were improved whilst Day Centres were closed and the unseen, vulnerable groups disadvantaged. This was all in the pursuit of 'value for money' and has continued to this day.
That we have no staff at railway stations; next to no human presence as you pass through Dover Docks; litter on our outlying roads, fewer policemen etc is all a consequence of the same activity.
You simply cannot cut costs and provide the same level of services. When will people be honest about this?
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Experience shows that you can cut costs and improve service, there is simply a massive amount of waste and inefficiency in the public sector that the private sector cannot afford.
DT1 - ref your Royal Marine Band point.... The bandsmen in HM Armed Forces have a vital battlefield role too and have often won VC's and other decorations in performing that role.
Ross - yes, the public sector employees with their exceptionally high on-costs and, in many cases, a rather beaurocratic work-ethic due to the public sector culture, do cost themselves out of work. So be it.
Chaps, there is no ideal way, no perfect outcome. Apart from anything else, although I think everyone will agree that quality services are wanted, there will be different opinions about priorities. Of course. But despite the poor experiences - and there are many - that does not mean it cannot be done, that we cannot retain and indeed improve quality AND save money. Sometimes the two go hand in hand - cut out the dead wood and inspire the remainder to do better. Offer evidence, demonstrate that it can be done. Value for Money is not a dirty phrase, and it can be and should be applied to service delivery - value for money says what it is - good value for the money spent. That has sometimes allowed the unscrupulous to reduce services as well, and it has led to poor decisions. But it doesn't have to. Peter et al have said it and I say it again - it is down to managing it better, doing it better.
Value for money means just that, not closing services because we need to save money, but delivering them more effectively, having the cojones to manage the people better, shopping around for the best (not the cheapest) deals.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
In our armed forces the musicians are also battlefield medics. Try finding a Polish drummer with battle trauma qualifications.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Indeed. Expect and reward the best, most appropriate. Not the cheapest, but the most effective, b est for the job.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
It seems that a few outsourcing deals are driven by political ideology too. From time to time some of the contract specifications are put in place specifically to exclude one class of bidder. This has come to light with 'in-house' bidding in NHS and Bombardier.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
A good privatisation/contracting out process is indeed not just about the cheapest tender. It is about how the tenderer proposes to deliver on the contract terms and the quality and sustainability of the proposals. At DDC that was one of the early lessons in my time and often the cheaper option was not taken where we felt it did not have a good prospect to deliver. A cheaper, inferior option could cost more money than one that, on paper, costs more. Careful evaluation of the full tender is always needed to select the one with the best combination of service delivery and cost.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
Bern
unfortunately politicians are viewed with such cynicism now that even when their intentions may be honourable they are not trusted. Value for money should be an aim but in truth it has become a euphemism for slash and burn. I didn't see much 'dead wood' in the public sector in which I have just left (although politicians love to bang on about it) as most roles had been cut many years ago and outsourced - few replicating the standard and quality that we had come to expect or been promised.
Until honesty returns (and trust) I will continue to view it that way as that has been my experience.
