Carrilion in trouble

[GT03ROB]

jules_s said:

Construction tenders are quite a bit different to service though

The problem with the cost/quality evaluation is that the contractors use heavyweight bid consultants who prepare the documents far better than the evaluator's are capable of measuring....which I think is where Tonker is coming from

So the quality side is diminished between bids because the tenders are nigh on identical in content....which then leads you into cost/quality and scoring weighting, a process which can look bent even when it isn't

Then you have the interviews which sometimes are just plain odd. Ask for the delivery team to attend (they do) and the MD feels the need to answer every question not letting anybody else get a word in

Which leads you back to having sophisticated clients who are capable of evaluating bids....

[crankedup]

defblade said:

doosht said:

Willy Nilly said:

How do people manage to get into positions of responsibility and end up running businesses like this with seemingly no ability to do so?

Yes, this!

"Rising to the level of their incompetence."

People who can do a job well (or at least ok) get promoted and promoted until they reach a job where they aren't any good at it, then stay there, continually being no good at it. Obviously they should then be either put back down a rung or moved sideways in something a bit different, but the world's against that...

What ever happened to getting ‘sacked’?

[Oakey]

crankedup said:

defblade said:

doosht said:

Willy Nilly said:

How do people manage to get into positions of responsibility and end up running businesses like this with seemingly no ability to do so?

Yes, this!

"Rising to the level of their incompetence."

People who can do a job well (or at least ok) get promoted and promoted until they reach a job where they aren't any good at it, then stay there, continually being no good at it. Obviously they should then be either put back down a rung or moved sideways in something a bit different, but the world's against that...

What ever happened to getting ‘sacked’?

I call this 'failing upwards'. No matter how st they are, they always seems to come up smelling of roses. I see this with football clubs a lot. A commercial manager will leave a club only to end up somewhere else in a better position. Their LinkedIn's always have glowing reviews too yet they always conveniently move on after their 6 month probationary period is up. If they're that fking good why didn't your club keep them on and why are they now CEO of some club that's barely above Sunday League?!

For example: One guy was Commercial Assistant for 12 months at one club, Head of Commercial for 8 months at another club and then CEO of another club for 6 months. Notice how the positions go up but the length of employment goes down?

Edited by Oakey on Wednesday 17th January 16:57

[Digga]

That and toothless HR departments who, whatever else they meddle in, seem to disappear at the first sign of trouble when employees require management. It's comically typical that large organisations, if and when any deadwood it pruned, use the crutch of external consultants to do at least some of the dirty work.

[jhiker]

crankedup said:

defblade said:

doosht said:

Willy Nilly said:

How do people manage to get into positions of responsibility and end up running businesses like this with seemingly no ability to do so?

Yes, this!

"Rising to the level of their incompetence."

People who can do a job well (or at least ok) get promoted and promoted until they reach a job where they aren't any good at it, then stay there, continually being no good at it. Obviously they should then be either put back down a rung or moved sideways in something a bit different, but the world's against that...

What ever happened to getting ‘sacked’?

Sacked! You're far more likely to get a bonus for running a company into the ground these days..

Edited by jhiker on Wednesday 17th January 12:51

[matchmaker]

aeropilot said:

defblade said:

doosht said:

Willy Nilly said:

How do people manage to get into positions of responsibility and end up running businesses like this with seemingly no ability to do so?

Yes, this!

"Rising to the level of their incompetence."

People who can do a job well (or at least ok) get promoted and promoted until they reach a job where they aren't any good at it, then stay there, continually being no good at it. Obviously they should then be either put back down a rung or moved sideways in something a bit different, but the world's against that...

In my experience what I've seen all too often, people that get to a position where they are clearly out of their depth, don't stay in that position, or get dropped down or moved sideways, as you say, they actually get promoted instead......

My experience, in the Civil Service, was of a member of staff who was so monumentally useless that he was promoted, as there was no other way to get him out of the office and into a different one. Regrettably, I was amongst the staff who had to put up with the fat, useless waste of space in his new promoted position. He was also my line manager, unfortunately. Nicknamed FLUB - Fat, Lazy, Useless bd.

[crankedup]

iphonedyou said:

crankedup said:

Outgoings outpacing income e dry month. Slow income on major projects. = £964 million short .
They are considering a call on shareholders to help bolster the finances. Company has been low balling major projects for years, using cheap labour and outing perfectly good decent companies with thier cheapo substitutes with people on rubbish money. Now it seems the business model is unravelling.
Chickens and roosting coms to mind.

It's 'Carillion'.

I can't imagine they've been low-balling major projects for the fun of it, either. Chickens and roosting my arse.

Ever wished you you could turn back time

I know it’s mean but as you pulled me on a spelling error it’s worthy!

[Usget]

crankedup said:

What ever happened to getting ‘sacked’?

Being "no good at your job" isn't a sackable offence, or half of the UK would be lined up at the job centre. Which would be empty because every fker there would have been sacked as well.

CEOs will have performance targets in their contracts, but anyone clever enough to get themselves made CEO will be easily clever enough to take enough firepower and sponsorship into a board meeting to make sure they don't get the blame for failing to hit them. Market conditions, underperforming acquisitions, etc, etc

[crankedup]

Usget said:

crankedup said:

What ever happened to getting ‘sacked’?

Being "no good at your job" isn't a sackable offence, or half of the UK would be lined up at the job centre. Which would be empty because every fker there would have been sacked as well.

CEOs will have performance targets in their contracts, but anyone clever enough to get themselves made CEO will be easily clever enough to take enough firepower and sponsorship into a board meeting to make sure they don't get the blame for failing to hit them. Market conditions, underperforming acquisitions, etc, etc

Yes indeed, those that hire couldn’t possibly be made to look,ineffective. And yet moved down the labour market and sackings or alive and well.

[55palfers]

I've read that one of Carillion's major creditors is state owned bank RBS.

Double whammy!

[Alpinestars]

55palfers said:

I've read that one of Carillion's major creditors is state owned bank RBS.

Double whammy!

Correct, but they came to the view that there was no prospect of the company turning the business around by putting more money in. After having gone through forbearance.

[Sa Calobra]

£1billion in debt to the banks.
£29million left in the coffers.

The media seem to care about why didn't the government save the company.

All I care about is when will the Directors and board be held to account and charges brought.

[crankedup]

Sa Calobra said:

£1billion in debt to the banks.
£29million left in the coffers.

The media seem to care about why didn't the government save the company.

All I care about is when will the Directors and board be held to account and charges brought.

Additionally I add that ‘what the hell were the pay board looking at when they made such pay packages’? And what were the major investors looking at when they nodded it all through? All are responsible and should be held to account. It’s one thing to be smart and make lots of money, but to do that and bring total failure deserves some form of penalty.

[Vocal Minority]

Countdown said:

Vocal Minority said:

If this leads to a world where a public tender is at least equally weighted between cost and quality I am all for it.

You can weight them however you feel appropriate. There's no rule that says cost score must equal at least 50%.

Well, yes.

But in my experience (property services) the culture is that cost is king. Maybe this will 'encourage' a change in culture.

[Digga]

crankedup said:

Sa Calobra said:

£1billion in debt to the banks.
£29million left in the coffers.

The media seem to care about why didn't the government save the company.

All I care about is when will the Directors and board be held to account and charges brought.

Additionally I add that ‘what the hell were the pay board looking at when they made such pay packages’? And what were the major investors looking at when they nodded it all through? All are responsible and should be held to account. It’s one thing to be smart and make lots of money, but to do that and bring total failure deserves some form of penalty.

I have to say, this is the crux of the issue.

And as I've previously mentioned, the present board are merely those - slow witted or sufficiently greedy enough to be - holding the parcel when the music stopped. In the list of those culpable, must also be the recently departed too, perhaps, in some ways, even more so.

[popeyewhite]

Digga said:

crankedup said:

Sa Calobra said:

£1billion in debt to the banks.
£29million left in the coffers.

The media seem to care about why didn't the government save the company.

All I care about is when will the Directors and board be held to account and charges brought.

Additionally I add that ‘what the hell were the pay board looking at when they made such pay packages’? And what were the major investors looking at when they nodded it all through? All are responsible and should be held to account. It’s one thing to be smart and make lots of money, but to do that and bring total failure deserves some form of penalty.

I have to say, this is the crux of the issue.

And as I've previously mentioned, the present board are merely those - slow witted or sufficiently greedy enough to be - holding the parcel when the music stopped. In the list of those culpable, must also be the recently departed too, perhaps, in some ways, even more so.

Take all money back from shareholders, directors etc that was paid out whilst the company was in the red as technically it wasn't the company's money to payout in the first place as it owed it all out anyway.

[frankenstein12]

BAM225 said:

Burwood said:

I recall a thread a year or so ago about the military and the money they spend. Someone on here worked for a supplier to the MOD. They quoted stupid pricing such as £15 for a £3 packet of panadol

Another one is lightbulbs at £20a unit which were £1.25 for the supplier to buy.

Since I work in this arena a little clarification maybe....

So as an example I saw a tweet from a doctor earlier toay about the fact it was costing £75 for a lighbulb to be changed which to common sense and common layman seems insane however its a matter of viability.

For a silly simplistic example you could hire someone at say £75 a day all year round to change light bulbs however they may only have to change a light bulb once a week so you are paying them £75 every other day for nothing.

If you could pay a contracting company £75 every few days for changing the light bulb instead which will clearly be cheaper.

It of course changes if it turns out the person hired full time just to change lightbulbs has to change 2 light bulbs every day of the year because then its clearly cheaper to have him full time as you are only paying him £75 a day where you would be paying the contractor £150 a day.

[Rovinghawk]

popeyewhite said:

Take all money back from shareholders, directors etc that was paid out whilst the company was in the red as technically it wasn't the company's money to payout in the first place as it owed it all out anyway.

Technically you could say the same about wages- you see the difficulty with your suggestion?

[frankenstein12]

popeyewhite said:

Digga said:

crankedup said:

Sa Calobra said:

£1billion in debt to the banks.
£29million left in the coffers.

The media seem to care about why didn't the government save the company.

All I care about is when will the Directors and board be held to account and charges brought.

Additionally I add that ‘what the hell were the pay board looking at when they made such pay packages’? And what were the major investors looking at when they nodded it all through? All are responsible and should be held to account. It’s one thing to be smart and make lots of money, but to do that and bring total failure deserves some form of penalty.

I have to say, this is the crux of the issue.

And as I've previously mentioned, the present board are merely those - slow witted or sufficiently greedy enough to be - holding the parcel when the music stopped. In the list of those culpable, must also be the recently departed too, perhaps, in some ways, even more so.

Take all money back from shareholders, directors etc that was paid out whilst the company was in the red as technically it wasn't the company's money to payout in the first place as it owed it all out anyway.

Not sure there is an authority to do all of that. I am led to believe that a stop has been put in place on all the named senior executives receiving any further pay that they ahd secured for themselves up till near end of this year that everyone was up in arms about which is great news.

Apparently according to TM the previous management to the present will be investigated as part of the look into what happened and there are powers to claw back money from them if wrongdoing is found.

That said I would hope they could also be charged with criminal misconduct in some form for allowing the firm to end up in this situation and at the very least bar them from ever being allowed to hold positions of that sort of power with any company with business in the UK.

[Usget]

frankenstein12 said:

Since I work in this arena a little clarification maybe....

So as an example I saw a tweet from a doctor earlier toay about the fact it was costing £75 for a lighbulb to be changed which to common sense and common layman seems insane however its a matter of viability.

For a silly simplistic example you could hire someone at say £75 a day all year round to change light bulbs however they may only have to change a light bulb once a week so you are paying them £75 every other day for nothing.

If you could pay a contracting company £75 every few days for changing the light bulb instead which will clearly be cheaper.

It of course changes if it turns out the person hired full time just to change lightbulbs has to change 2 light bulbs every day of the year because then its clearly cheaper to have him full time as you are only paying him £75 a day where you would be paying the contractor £150 a day.

Whilst this makes sense, up to a point, it falls into the standard project management trap of trying to rationalise everything into a discrete role. The fallacy is that the £75 a day lightbulb permie couldn't possibly do anything else with the time he spends not changing bulbs.