Carillion

Thanks Jen.

Maizie, really following on from what you say about the way services were provided in-house, it was interesting that May said (well yelled really) today, in PMQs, that the government were "the customer of Carillion, not the manager of Carillion".

Who, in that case, was managing our taxes?

And probation as well, Maizie. This is such an obvious conflict between public safety and private profits.

weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/probation

Maizie that brings back memories of the appalling food supplied by outside contractors in order for there to be enough profit in the contract. IIRC the food was prepared offsite in one location, so I don't see how it could have been successful. In my Mum's village the food for the local meals on wheels service used to be supplied by the local primary school. At least the food was still relatively fresh and hot.

Anyone know how meals on wheels are supplied these days?

GGMK2 and that's the million dollar question. As I said before the process is flawed. The decision to apply penalties is not always a quick process, so there is a constant time lag.

We heard today that Carillion was penalised £1.5 million for every month a hospital that should have been completed last March. That's an easily identified service level agreement failure and an easy to apply penalty. But Carillion wasn't required to hand over the £1.5 million every month. It was just deducted from the future payments the government was due to make at stages of the contract. And Carillion is short of that money to manage its other contracts.

What good is that? And as I said, that's an easy to identify failure. Most of the time there's discussions about a failing contract and time given for improvements to be achieved, but the whole time the service is not being provided as contracted. This is the normal state of affairs.

TM's comment today was stating a fact. It's also how it will escape from being held responsible, although individual heads may roll. Carillion is unlikely to be found wanting legally, but ethically is another matter altogether.

I see that bonuses to Carillion directors have been stopped and that the last MD, who like all rats had jumped the sinking ship and found himself a cosy new job on the board of a rail maintenance company has resigned from that post.

The last MD is blaming the banks for tightening lending requirements. He fails to see that if he and his colleagues had not already brought the company to its knees, it wouldn't have been looking for a bail out and that faced with a company so clearly on its uppers, banks got nervous.

Meanwhile, the economy gets ever more broken. Britain has both the world’s leading financial centre and proportionately lower corporate investment than any of our major competitors. London boasts more billionaires than any other city in the world, yet one in five of the country’s workers earn less than a living wage. While Westminster politicians bang on about devolution, the regional wealth gap in the UK is bigger than in any other member of the EU. Milan and Naples; Frankfurt and Dresden; Bucharest and Transylvania: none of them are as far apart as stucco-fronted west London and the Welsh valleys.

From Aditya Chakrabortty's article in the Guardian today.

"And if you want a tale of misplaced priorities, try this one: Amazon, Facebook, Apple, eBay and Starbucks put together pay less in tax to the British exchequer than the five biggest cooperatives – including such titans as Arla Foods. Yet it’s the Silicon Valley giants who are feted by ministers and given public money. The taxpayer even paid for the roads laid to Amazon’s Swansea warehouse."

Nobody's managing our taxes.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/17/britain-zombie-elite-politicians-economy

"At the heart of modern capitalism is a promise: work hard and you will get on. Britain’s political classes can no longer keep that promise, and the consequences of that take us into politically uncharted territory.

The student radical, the frustrated lawyer: these are the eternal faces of political dissent. Social upheaval has always been initiated by the young and angry. But the nurse at the food bank, the council employee in a homeless shelter: these political actors are new and we don’t know what script they will follow."

My parents voted Tory because they believed that.

It will be interesting to see if the severance pay and bonuses stay stopped ( IYSWIM). I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we don’t see legal action from them eventually about getting this money. It makes for a good headline doesn’t it but I expect this area of law is very complex and what’s the betting that they made sure that legally this money was somehow protected?

Yes, M0nica and it's better than nothing, but according to the BBC -

Several former executives of the firm would have received pay and benefits this year.

Carillion had agreed to keep paying former chief executive Richard Howson a £660,000 salary and £28,000 in benefits until October as part of his departure deal.

Former finance chief Zafar Khan, who left Carillion in September, was due to receive £425,000 in base salary for 12 months.

Interim chief executive Keith Cochrane was due to be paid his £750,000 salary until July, despite being due to leave next month.

So plenty of money will still to be paid to former senior managers. Perhaps it would cost too much to fight any legal challenges if they were not paid.

maryeliza snap. I think we're thinking along the same lines.

People at this level of management do not negotiate their own packages. They're bound to be legally protected.

^ London boasts more billionaires than any other city in the world,^

That is a bit out-dated now apparently:
www.statista.com/statistics/299494/billionaires-top-cities

I base my cynicism on the money Richard Branson got from the NHS where I live when he lost the contract for not delivering - as we keep saying, couldn’t make it up could you - the chutzpah of the rich and powerful knows no bounds

Skins like rhinoceros maryeliza

Jalima I can't see the information on your link without paying? London must be more attractive than ever then because it used to be New York. Perhaps it was Trump getting elected that made some of the move? Or our tax system?

We now wait to see whether other firms who were working on projects in conjunction with Carillion (not as sub-contractors of Carillion) have the capacity to take over the projects and at least some of the workforce. Under some contractural arrangements other firms involved on projects are obliged to complete the works - but who will fund the shortfall?

Oh, I didn't have to pay. I will try to cut and paste.

I can't access that link without paying either now.

This is from a different source, but the list is the same one from March 2017:

Beijing (94)
New York (86)
Hong Kong (71)
Shenzhen (62)
Moscow (59)
London (55)
Shanghai (53)
Mumbai (42)
Paris (36)
Hangzhou (36)
There are now 2,257 billionaires in the world, up 69 from last year and 804 over the past 5 years. China has the most billionaires of any country, with 609, while the USA comes in second place overall, with 552. Together, the two countries account for 1,161 billionaires, or more than half the world’s billionaire population.

London boasts more billionaires than any other city in the world
I didn't state that, I was just trying to quote it.

Skins like rhinoceros maryeliza
Why worry when you don't have to mix with the 'little people'.

Surely the only meaningful comparative figures for billionaires would be as a proportion of the relevant population?

Yes, of course, but someone posted that London has the most, I was just responding that the figures could be a bit out of date.

And your children are BFF with royalty?

sorry, you've lot me

lost me

Very useful link, Jalima. I'm not paying to check up on Chakrabortty's statistics.
What about the other half of the sentence. Tha's just as important, isn't it?

But the figures are meaningless as raw date aren’t they? We shouldn’t encourage some innumeracy should we?