We should be quietly grateful to G4S for messing up big time on its Olympics contract. Not that I'm saying that it should ever have had such a contract; it shouldn't, but because by getting it so badly wrong it shows why the whole logic of outsourcing does not work.
First, it put profit first. As a result it has cut corners. That's not what public service needs. We all know that. They just graphically prove it.
Second, they show short termism is a disaster. You can't expect to recruit and train people whilst imparting useful skills in a short time scale. The people involved know they are being treated with contempt; the service standard that follows is contemptuous. The same is seen wherever this logic is used.
Third, the logic of recruiting people a few weeks before the games and sacking them immediately thereafter shows that the logic of cheap labour inherent in outsourcing is dependent upon mass unemployment and the expendability of people. No wonder the Tories are doing nothing to tackle unemployment. Their friend's business models are dependent upon it.
But most of all, nothing of real value comes from this. When the only definition of value is cash profit nothing of real value to the people involved, the community they serve or of lasting relevance is created.
The state has the ability to create that value through commitment. Outsourcing does not. Which is why it is a disaster.
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Yesterday, I mentioned The Stan And Ollympics which referred to my post of Tuesday 9 May 2009 where I discussed the need for a strategy for security, the size of the problem and the likely costings (these in broad terms). So over three years ago one grumpy ancient could see the problem. How come we got to where we are now?
And to think, London was awarded the honour of hosting the Olympics 7 years ago! A neat spot of vetting it has not been. I shudder to think how the issue is being reported abroad.
Not forgetting that every G4S Olympic recruit has to be crb’ed.
Along with all the others working anywhere near the Olympics, including the burger-stall staff.
I wonder what the failure rate is…at min wage ?
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/olympic-volunteers-given-rocket-launchers-2012071334208
I find it intensely amusing that it is said to be cheaper and more efficient to have policing done by unemployed people on short term contracts with little training: when in another part of the forest those same people are portrayed as shiftless fraudsters who will neither work not want, and who are all addicted to drugs and alcohol. The double think in this country continues to astound
I do not find amusement or double standards.
There is only a structure that denies the rewards of civiilian society to those that create it and transfers it to an extremely well organised and empowered elite.
Of course there are ‘contradictions’ between what is said and done, that is because the conservative governmenrt find them useful to do what they want.
If G4S start becoming the police, on a related subject, who investigates them when they get accused of corporate impropriety? There in a nutshell is why we can’t outsource any aspect at all of policing.
Short termism is what you use for a short term requirement isn’t it? Thousands of security guards needed for just a few weeks. The long term view is that you hire them and keep them and deploy them after the games where exactly? Perhaps we plan to introduce security guards to every school or hospital? Alternatively policing could have been ramped up over the past few years and then policing could have been cut to its normal levels around the country to provide security in London for a few weeks?
The logic of outsourcing works just fine, this just isn’t a great example of something that should be outsourced. The area it falls down in is that it needs the entity with the contract to greatly ramp up its own staffing levels to meet the requirement. Therefore that company has exactly the same problem as the outsourcing entity would have doing the same thing itself.
I would personally have thought the armed forces were the obvious way to do it, certainly a cost effective method for the country to use a resource it already has, assuming it isn’t busy fighting wars elsewhere. On the other hand hiring a whole collection of other people for a few weeks work may well pump money into the economy that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
When we’re cutting many thousands of police, imposing a massive cost on society and business alike, you logic makes no sense at all. We have gainful employment available for all those needed.
And the armed forces? Haven’t you noticed we’re just sacking 20,000 of them too? What will happen then?
Do a little macro thinking for a change. It really does help
I remain of the view that you just can’t use a one off 3-4 week requirement to justify retaining thousands of police officers indefinitely.
The only reason to have police officers is if they have a job to do on an on-going basis and I am not going to argue whether they do or not, but if they have a job to do all year round then they shouldn’t be dragged away from doing that job for the sake of the Olympics.
The armed forces are a special exception because they are a very special sort of civil servant you have just in case you need them.
Ah, that special sort of civil servant who is regualrly shot at
Your logic is utterly bizarre
Fion got it right
Yes, they get shot at. Unfortunately that is what members of the military are paid to put up with.
However the point is that in April MOD figures show that of the 104,250 members of the regular army 84,180 of them were in the UK. That is over 80% of the army and last time I checked there wasn’t a war being fought in the UK. This must be the most obvious organisation that could provide security at the Olympics and deal with the need for many individuals on a short term security project.
I doubt that everyone in the army is front-of-house, as it were. A lot must be backroom types employed in essentially beaurocratic endeavours. It makes sense for them to be in the UK rather than the field of operations, no? Pen-pushers, members of the armed forces or not, might not be the best people to employ in checking for concealed explosives etc.
Perhaps they aren’t all front of house, but I would hope we don’t have 80% pen pushers in the army.
There are also 72,790 members of the RAF and Navy that are UK based. I am sure this includes a good number of marines who surely can hold their own?
I didn’t include the 70,940 MOD Civilians of whom 57,220 are based in the UK. I suspect they do a lot of the pen pushing. Given that there is almost one MOD Civilian for every 2 members of the military it is difficult to imagine there could be a lot more pen pushing left to do.
I am not sure I have a lot of confidence that police officers and/or temporary workers from G4S are any better or worse when checking for explosives than a member of the armed forces.
Should we have a permanent full-time steward corps? 20k more permanent government employees, forever and ever?
How about we call them police?
How about we train them properly, give them fair pay, and use them most of the time to tackle the issues facing our society – of which there are many?
How about we just stop sacking the police?
How about we stop the downgrading of police work to underpaid community officers?
How about we just do something right?
If we cannot afford a proper police force then we cannot afford to host an expensive vanity project like the Olympics.
Let’s be honest its a huge waste of time and money anyway. Its a shame it was ever awarded to London in the first place.
The employment of an army of secuirty guards loyal only to their paymasters may well be a giant step in the attempt at one-world take-over. One problem these people have though is that they’re idiots. Take away the authority they’re so desperate for and they’re useless.
I’ve little problem with outsourcing tasks to those with a greater degree of competence recognising that they are likely to do a better and more cost effective job or even to do so when I don’t have the resources available to do one off tasks e.g. I do it all the time with household repairs etc. What is completely stupid is outsourcing to a body with a known track record of doing the task concerned with less competence than the State and then failing to monitor their progress in doing the task in hand.
Outsourcing is fine in principle
Giving up control and quality to undermine your own objectives is when it becomes nonsense
My understanding is that G4S tendered 25 per cent below their competitors, surely that should have set alarm bells ringing somewhere. Of course it is difficult to provide this type of service involving fully trained personnel for such a short time but then G4S should have factored that into the price. The CEO has expressed his ‘disappointment’ that he could not meet the contractual requirements but frankly he should be sacked for incompetence. The company had sufficient time to realise that the task was more difficult than it had anticipated and therefore should have taken the appropriate remedial action sooner – management failing at a very high level!!!