As the Mirror notes today:
Amazon is advising ministers on how to buy goods and services after Brexit, while raking in millions of pounds in contracts itself.
The Mirror can reveal the US firm was on a “secretive” panel set up by the Cabinet Office to help shape public sector procurement in future.
As they add:
Amazon has been awarded 82 central Government contracts, worth £225million, in the past five years and has a deal enabling local councils to buy supplies in one marketplace.
And as they noted:
Paul Monaghan, of the Fair Tax Mark, which highlighted Amazon's involvement on the “secretive” panel, said it was “truly frightening”.
He said: “The manner in which Amazon is embedding itself into national and regional public procurement in the UK has long been cause for concern.
“We are close to the point where it will be impossible for anyone else to compete.”
Paul Monaghan was not alone in his criticisms:
Amazon has been criticised for its track record on paying UK corporation tax. TUC boss Frances O'Grady said: “Amazon's reward for its exploitative business model is a seat at the table on an influential Government board advising on public procurement, on top of the multi-million-pound Government contracts it receives.”
As the Mirror noted:
Amazon declined to comment.
The Cabinet Office refused to comment on the firm's involvement, but said: “This panel is an important part of our engagement as we look to improve procurement rules.”
They are, of course, at liberty not to comment. But others are free to question, and I do.
Amazon is not in the position of a normal business: it is an effective monopoly supplier in some sectors, and has very few competitors in others e.g. large-scale computer hosting. This does not make its experience representative. Nor does it broaden the base of suppliers to government, which is one of the few things that Brexit might deliver.
So what is going on here? I think that the Fair Tax Mark is entirely right to ask, even whilst noting that I am an advisor to it, whilst also recording that I had no part in developing this story.
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“The American Bar Association (ABA) this week lambasted the Mexican government for using heavy handed tactics, including criminal probes into tax fraud, to motivate corporate tax dodgers to finally settle their tax bills. The complaint echoes a similar broadside from the International Bar Association last month and reflects growing frustration among companies about the government’s use of more stringent audits, tighter surveillance methods, and the threat of tough legal action to crack down on corporate tax dodgers and tax frauds”
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/10/25/us-global-corporate-giants-not-amused-mexico-finally-forces-them-to-pay-the-taxes-they-owe/
Poor little dears
Tax is only for the little people, after all
WTF! – all this stuff going on will be keeping Jolyon Maugham’s Good Law project busy for a few years. I think I will increase my donations to his crowd funding.
I was thinking along the lines of ‘set a thief to catch a thief’
More seriously, with or without outsourcing, procurement is hugely important to the state and the state needs to have skills of its own. It used to be called ‘core competence’
Some of the discussion on the movement from weak state, to failing state and finally to failed state considers that the concept of circles of influence is useful. As the state declines, the inner circle becomes smaller and smaller and more and more powerful. So it should not be a surprise that Amazon, Deloitte, Serco, McKinsey, keep popping up in all sorts of areas. Money comes before principles in any dictionary.
Is it not surprising that in the face of this and other comparable kinds of malpractice conducted by the Government, we never seem to get a murmur of protest from Her Majesty’s Opposition?
Nit entirely true, I have to say, and I am not keen to let them off
Why is MacKinseys setting the governments homework on the NHS data handling and marking its homework? see below
https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business Functions/McKinsey Analytics/Our Insights/Catch them if you can How leaders in data and analytics have pulled ahead/Catch-them-if-you-can-How-leaders-in-data-and-analytics-have-pulled-ahead.pdf
and “The consultancy McKinsey was hired to work on a significant NHS technology review and paid nearly £600,000 for the work, newly released documents show.
In July, Matt Hancock ordered a review of the way NHS Digital, NHSX and NHS England/Improvement work together to drive digital transformation across the NHS.
The review is being led by new NHS Digital chair Laura Wade-Gery, but a contract published by the Department of Health and Social Care on Tuesday reveals that McKinsey was also hired to work on the review.
The two-month contract, which finished at the end of September, was worth £588,000.
When it announced the review, the DHSC said Ms Wade-Gery would “draw on experiences to…determine the critical capabilities and digital operating model across NHSD, NHSX and NHSE/I needed to drive the digitally enabled wider system transformation envisaged in the NHS long-term plan”.
This means the review may lead to changes in the roles and responsibilities of the three organisations.
It is not clear yet what McKinsey’s role in the review is because the section describing this in the contract has been redacted. Redactions have also been applied to a section about “alternative pricing”.
The contract states DHSC selected McKinsey through the Management Consultancy Services framework run by Crown Commercial Services.
In 2018, NHS Improvement paid McKinsey £500,000 to help clarify its purpose and work on a new organisational development programme”.
The technology review is expected to be completed later this year.
McKinsey said it did not comment on client work. The DHSC was also approached for comment.
Extract from Health Services Journal
and https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/250/data-transparency-and-accountability-covid-19/
Government seems to have been subcontracted to teams of consultants who have a vested interest in creating work for themselves.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/21/government-covid-contracts-britain-nhs-corporate-executives-test-and-trace
It turns out both Harding and Whately both worked for MacKinsey
Now there’s a surprise
Whately will replace Hancock sometime, I suspect
I know she’s completely incompetent
That’s why she will replace Hancock
Parliamentary select committees seem to me to come up with generally useful reports that have reasonable credibility. It seems to me that the talent already exists within government and civil service, if only….it were actually used to inform policy and direction.
All for a fraction of consultancy fees and much more transparent.
The PAC can see the truth, fir example
So when does the corruption begin?
It is embedded into an opaque system and in part it follows with government ignoring the committees, bolstered by ‘loyal’ MPs who continue to vote for government.
It continues when individuals (Dominic Cummings, donor chums, etc) are allowed to drive policy and MPs too weak / naive to make any useful interventions.
Same old, same old.
Still if enough of us do what we can – writing / meeting MPs, getting soundbites into mainstream media – it can all resonate.
Politicians are not good managers and it is they who have reduced much of the state apparatus to a state of dysfunction – they’ve been manufacturing consent to bring the Amazon’s and MacKinseys of this world into Government since Adam was a lad.