MOD paying £22 for a 65p light bulb
Discussion
clarkey said:
Not all suppliers try to con the MOD...
We have various contracts with parts of the MOD (and various other government departments) and the commercial terms are exactly the same as private sector contracts. Sometimes extra project management time is allowed, but this is due to the extra layer of administration caused by third parties that are involved in the contracts.
Overall, they push value just as hard as the private sector in my experience.
Aye - would, could, should We have various contracts with parts of the MOD (and various other government departments) and the commercial terms are exactly the same as private sector contracts. Sometimes extra project management time is allowed, but this is due to the extra layer of administration caused by third parties that are involved in the contracts.
Overall, they push value just as hard as the private sector in my experience.
ShayneJ said:
Ha had almost the same thing happen to me last year at a large MOD contractor site
in berks our project office wanted a whiteboard putting up (they already had the board)
and the building maintenance contractor wanted £500 to screw it to the wall
and two weeks notice to do it!
Wont name the company but they are well known around the reading area white vans
with EM**RE on the side utter parasite of a firm.
I've had the "pleasure" of working with Mitie, Interserve, AWG.in berks our project office wanted a whiteboard putting up (they already had the board)
and the building maintenance contractor wanted £500 to screw it to the wall
and two weeks notice to do it!
Wont name the company but they are well known around the reading area white vans
with EM**RE on the side utter parasite of a firm.
Ihe main problem is the way they are paid. They were paid automatically from central Govt and there was an incredibly complicated performance penalty system (which of course they would dispute). Almost without fail central Govt would rollover and pay the bill even when we could demonstrate contractual compliance failures.
The government have now scrapped their plans to privatise the MOD procurement process.
Why did more companies not bid for this?
Why did more companies not bid for this?
said:
The government has abandoned plans to privatise its defence procurement body after only one bidder was left in contention for the contract.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said there was no longer a "competitive process" and the risks of continuing were "too great to be acceptable".
BBC linkDefence Secretary Philip Hammond said there was no longer a "competitive process" and the risks of continuing were "too great to be acceptable".
said:
Scrapped MoD procurement privatisation cost £19.4m
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed how much it has spent on the failed attempt to part-privatise its defence procurement arm.
The DE&S organisation will remain in government ownership and under government control after the Defence Secretary today confirmed he was abandoning plans to allow a private consortium to run it.
The total cost of the project runs to £19.4 million.
£12 million was spent on the original "concept phase" to examine what to do with DE&S.
A further £7.4 million was spent on looking at the hiving off the organisation to a GoCo (Government Owned, Contractor Operated).
So you won't get much change out of twenty million pounds of taxpayers' money.
DE&S spends £14 billion of your money on defence procurement each year.
MoD sources say that unless they stuck with the status quo (and defence procurement has come under a lot of criticism in recent years) part of the costs would have still been accrued.
They add that a private sector ethos will now be injected into the organisation and they do eventually hope it can to turned it into a 'GoCo'.
The only consortium left bidding for the contract insisted today it would have "generated billions of pounds of savings for the Armed Forces" if it has been allowed to operate the defence procurement process for the MoD.
ITV newsThe Ministry of Defence has confirmed how much it has spent on the failed attempt to part-privatise its defence procurement arm.
The DE&S organisation will remain in government ownership and under government control after the Defence Secretary today confirmed he was abandoning plans to allow a private consortium to run it.
The total cost of the project runs to £19.4 million.
£12 million was spent on the original "concept phase" to examine what to do with DE&S.
A further £7.4 million was spent on looking at the hiving off the organisation to a GoCo (Government Owned, Contractor Operated).
So you won't get much change out of twenty million pounds of taxpayers' money.
DE&S spends £14 billion of your money on defence procurement each year.
MoD sources say that unless they stuck with the status quo (and defence procurement has come under a lot of criticism in recent years) part of the costs would have still been accrued.
They add that a private sector ethos will now be injected into the organisation and they do eventually hope it can to turned it into a 'GoCo'.
The only consortium left bidding for the contract insisted today it would have "generated billions of pounds of savings for the Armed Forces" if it has been allowed to operate the defence procurement process for the MoD.
Edited by Victor McDade on Wednesday 11th December 12:44
SplatSpeed said:
I have a good one for you
the inland revenue sold all their buildings and rent them back!
because they can make tax on the rental income, shame they were bought by an offshore company!
Sort of related. the inland revenue sold all their buildings and rent them back!
because they can make tax on the rental income, shame they were bought by an offshore company!
Mercedes sold Tesco their tractor units (HGV truck units) at a £100 profit each. (Considering Tesco probably have 1000's of units it's good promotional material for Merc, I guess) and Tesco then sold them to a leasing company (for a profit) and lease them back, thus getting tax relief!
I'm not sure if Mercedes were kicking themselves after but I bet someone got a punch in the goolies!
(this was first hand from the person who did the deal)
PoleDriver said:
Q:- How many soldiers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A:- As many as you can afford!
Don't be silly, it depends how many of them have done the bulb fitting course, then how many of them had also done the ladder climbing course, will also need someone who has done the ladder climbing supervisor course and is still in date, then you would have to check the bulb and make sure the first soldier had done the familiarisation course and that two was in date. Then a third soldier will have had to have done a report saying the bulb was no longer working, then a fourth soldier would have to put in a request for the bulb to be replaced, a fifth soldier would have to come and check that the bulb had blown. Once the bulb had been replaced by the first and second soldiers, the fifth soldier would have to come back and check that it had been replaced correctly and was now working. Following this a report would have to be done by a sixth soldier, to send to the fourth soldier to confirm that the bulb had been changed as requested A:- As many as you can afford!
Cfnteabag said:
PoleDriver said:
Q:- How many soldiers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A:- As many as you can afford!
Don't be silly, it depends how many of them have done the bulb fitting course, then how many of them had also done the ladder climbing course, will also need someone who has done the ladder climbing supervisor course and is still in date, then you would have to check the bulb and make sure the first soldier had done the familiarisation course and that two was in date. Then a third soldier will have had to have done a report saying the bulb was no longer working, then a fourth soldier would have to put in a request for the bulb to be replaced, a fifth soldier would have to come and check that the bulb had blown. Once the bulb had been replaced by the first and second soldiers, the fifth soldier would have to come back and check that it had been replaced correctly and was now working. Following this a report would have to be done by a sixth soldier, to send to the fourth soldier to confirm that the bulb had been changed as requested A:- As many as you can afford!
Only just seen this thread, the MOD still continue to pay extortionate prices for non essential things, such as this week we had 20 doors painted 'blue' from the original beige colour at the grand price of £1000 per door..... Decorational not operational. There are so many more examples i could give, i should write a book.
Zaxxon said:
At a location in Aldershot, the useless company that did all of the maintenance for the various sites wanted £650 to hang 2 medium sized whiteboards in our office. And it would take 6 -8 week before they could do it.
If I had done it (as I had offered...for free) I would have been dropped from the project.
That contract to maintain the sites will is in place for 30 years!
Anyone who has visited any of the sites in Aldershot will know what a dreadfull state they are in.
There are some MOD procurement personnel that need jailing for gross incompetance.
Carillion ? If I had done it (as I had offered...for free) I would have been dropped from the project.
That contract to maintain the sites will is in place for 30 years!
Anyone who has visited any of the sites in Aldershot will know what a dreadfull state they are in.
There are some MOD procurement personnel that need jailing for gross incompetance.
I did a lean improvement contract with the MOD In Telford, and was amazed that there was no waste at all.
Well there was, but there were 100 excuses why they couldn't change it.
Victor McDade said:
This is all down to this Bernard Gray chap then - seems to cream it off nicely while blowing £20m on not making any change... Nice work if you can get it. Has he been sacked? If not, why not?http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ministry-defe...
DS3R said:
This is all down to this Bernard Gray chap then - seems to cream it off nicely while blowing £20m on not making any change... Nice work if you can get it. Has he been sacked? If not, why not?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ministry-defe...
Regards GoCo....http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ministry-defe...
That's rather naive point of view. Whilst the result might not appear a great way of spending money (and I don't pretend to claim it is) any attempt at investigating potentially new ways of doing something, especially running an organisation as large as that will cost money... and a lot of it.
The important thing is that in the end the correct decision is made.. and I suggest that the way the project went is a good indication that GoCo was not the future of DE&S.
I used to work for a firm that supplied parts to civilian companies, companies contracted by the MOD, and the MOD themselves. There was an outrageous inflation of prices for anything that was going to the MOD directly or indirectly. For instance, a bag of small cadmium plated bolts supplied to another civilian company would be £x; to the MOD contractor the same bag would be say 2 x £x (they would then add their own cut to that), and for the MOD 5 x £x. The only difference was with the MOD direct supply we had to retype the CofC onto a military format page.
When in the mob myself someone pointed out that the large adjustable spanner I was using cost almost £100, (and this was in the 90s). It was a normal adjustable spanner, nothing special about it. In our tool stores some wit had removed the standard day-glo orange shadow from the board and replaced it with a gold foil shadow.
When in the mob myself someone pointed out that the large adjustable spanner I was using cost almost £100, (and this was in the 90s). It was a normal adjustable spanner, nothing special about it. In our tool stores some wit had removed the standard day-glo orange shadow from the board and replaced it with a gold foil shadow.
If the MoD utilised their budget more efficiently perhaps they would not need to cut back on the numbers of combat personnel like they're currently doing. If they need to use mobile Internet overseas then stick a foreign sim card into a mifi device and connect it to your phone.
article said:
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) paid out a whopping £40,800 in data roaming charges for a single phone number in the 2013/14 financial year, PoliticsHome can reveal.
The charge was one of a range of eyewatering bills the MoD received for individual numbers over the last three financial years.
Top charges for single phones between 2012/13 and 2014/15 ranged from just under £20,000 to almost £41,000 for using non-wifi internet networks abroad and £10,000-£27,000 for call and text bills.
- See more at: https://www.politicshome.com/foreign-and-defence/a...
The charge was one of a range of eyewatering bills the MoD received for individual numbers over the last three financial years.
Top charges for single phones between 2012/13 and 2014/15 ranged from just under £20,000 to almost £41,000 for using non-wifi internet networks abroad and £10,000-£27,000 for call and text bills.
- See more at: https://www.politicshome.com/foreign-and-defence/a...
I love these threads. Click-baits designed to enrage terminally stupid. Seems it's working. One of my previous employers was a supplier to MOD. If my experience is anything to go by the margins were so tiny that only quantities ordered made it worthwhile to supply. They would literary argue over every single penny, for hours. IIRC payment terms were pretty s
t too.
t too. My experience of having worked for a large IT employer subcontracted by the MOD for 13 years was that it wasn't so much their attitude to money per se, it was their utter naivety in getting screwed over every which way for products and services.
For example, I was paid to maintain and modify an application for three years - which the customer didn't even use. It was deemed too complicated at the start by the personnel using it on deployment, who went back to using paper and pen. I flagged this up as inefficient use of tax money and was promptly told to keep schtum by my employer.
One of the reasons I ended up leaving.
For example, I was paid to maintain and modify an application for three years - which the customer didn't even use. It was deemed too complicated at the start by the personnel using it on deployment, who went back to using paper and pen. I flagged this up as inefficient use of tax money and was promptly told to keep schtum by my employer.
One of the reasons I ended up leaving.
Many years ago I worked for Serck Marston. We had a contract to repair radiators and fuel tanks for the Army based at Aldershot.
On the Bedford TK 4X4 the lads were using Jerry cans to fill them and would bang them on the neck cracking it. We were doing 6 or 7 unit each week.
I offered to modify the tank by putting a brace in them, this was turned down as it would mean every truck would need to be modified in the same way.
Speaking with the man in charge, forget the rank, a new tank was cheaper than we charged to repair them, but the process to get one was so long winded that they chose a more expensive but quicker route every time.
On the Bedford TK 4X4 the lads were using Jerry cans to fill them and would bang them on the neck cracking it. We were doing 6 or 7 unit each week.
I offered to modify the tank by putting a brace in them, this was turned down as it would mean every truck would need to be modified in the same way.
Speaking with the man in charge, forget the rank, a new tank was cheaper than we charged to repair them, but the process to get one was so long winded that they chose a more expensive but quicker route every time.
To be fair this isn't restricted to publicly funded bodies or the MOD, it's a problem with large corporate entities in general, I've worked at plenty of multinationals where the control of daft little costs (including wasted labour hours - witnessed by the amount of my time I spend during the day reading and typing bks on this forum) is lacking. I've worked in plenty of offices with outsourced maintenance where people aren't allowed to change a light bulb and the cost for doing so is daft.
ks on this forum) is lacking. I've worked in plenty of offices with outsourced maintenance where people aren't allowed to change a light bulb and the cost for doing so is daft.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff