Now where have we heard this before?
What's the betting that:
a. It will cost a lot more than two hundred million.
b. It won't work.
c. Points "a" and "b" will be withheld from the public "for operational security" reasons.
Lincolnshire cops to chuck £200m at G4S in ICT deal
Lincolnshire police authority has made security specialist G4S its preferred bidder in an outsourcing deal that will include ICT, back office and command and control and could be developed into a shared service for other police forces in the country. The company is on course to land a 10-year, strategic partnership contract …
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Friday 23rd December 2011 11:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Usual public sector useless management team
As per usual a bunch of useless administrators in the Public Sector have fallen for the "savings" mantra of out-sourcing. I'd like to see the bloody evidence this is the case. If they can make savings then it shows they were fucking useless at running their organisation in the first place.
However as we all know, as someone has already pointed out it will cost a lot more and will be a worse service.
I remember when Group 4 were just security guard suppliers, now they're doing ICT and Policing too!!!
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Friday 23rd December 2011 11:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
As a police officer in a force not a million miles from Lincs, I find this absolutely terrifying!
I think we are chopping off our own nose to spite our face, how can we justify throwing away years of independence and chance of development by giving it to a company who chooses to do what it will at it's own whim; what choice will Chief Constables have? No doubt there will be pay cuts and service cuts which directly affect front line staff.
What happens when the staff decide they're going on strike based on the way their employer treats them?
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Tuesday 3rd January 2012 11:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
control room staff
Well, these people have to be closely linked to the police, and go out with them to understand the job, co-ordinating police work. Sounds like a privatisation too far.
Now the actual control of police operations will be made by disgruntled people who have had to re-apply to their jobs, for less money, and are now no longer employed by the police (and therefore can stike etc.)
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Friday 23rd December 2011 12:15 GMT JimC
What you guys have to understand is
If its an in house service then when there's a cash crisis (at least every two years) then the IT gets across the board cuts like everyone else. But if its outsourced then its a contact and can't be cut, so Mr Responsible Executive has held on to his budget and his empire.
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Friday 23rd December 2011 14:35 GMT LarsG
ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY TO......
waste tax payers money.
In six months to a year they will be back cap in hand asking for more money because of cost over runs and the fact that they deliberately bid too low.
I also wonder if the bidding process is on the lines of what used to happen in the public building sector.
The bidding firms all have a nice chat with each other then each takes their turn of a project. The others deliberately bid too high so G4S get the project. Next time round it will be another firms turn to 'win' by the same process.
Keeps the bids all in house and excludes other businesses from bidding including small businesses that 'would be offered the chance of bidding for' government contracts which was stated by the present government.
Obviously not and it smells bad.
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Friday 23rd December 2011 17:08 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
You misunderstand
The chief whatever will get big bonuses and promotions for this cost saving measure - although they wont actually cut any existing in house costs, they will just move that to another budget.
Then in a few years, when it's a giant clusterfuck, the new chief will get bonuses and promotions for his new policy of streamlining and cutting costs by bringing it all in house. Obviously there will be a few hundred million in short term transitional costs but that's a different budget.
Then in a few years ....
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Friday 23rd December 2011 17:45 GMT vmistery
Outsourcing just does not work
Every day I deal with Outsourcing companies and every day it drives me spare. It takes an age to get anything done and then the product we sell ends up costing the end user 5 * the amount because the providers charge so much for systems not included in the original contract . Oh and this is in the private sector. We get customers complaining to us when it is their own IT provider that are causing the delays. It is simply never a good idea unless you environment never changes (and it will). Its probably because they have to employ marketing / sales and accounting staff whereas if you just do it in house these costs just don't exist.
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Sunday 25th December 2011 15:32 GMT John Smith 19
There *might* be a way to make this work out.
G4S *studies* the back office systems (paper and computer based) and discovers inefficiencies which they remove (assuming their contract actually *motivates* them to do this).
Other forces buy into the services and the forces work together to *converge* their processes, giving a single shared, processes across all forces operating out of a single (well connected and secure) site, reducing manpower, office space
Probability this little fantasy will work out.
Higher than me being invited on a date by a super model.
But not by much.
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Monday 26th December 2011 00:41 GMT All names Taken
Gov/Whitehall outsourcing seems to fall into two main troughs.
In one trough the contract is almost fatally flawed and sufficient to qualify as poisoned chalice model to whatever and whomever happens to gain the business.
In the other trough the contract, terms and conditions along with executive management of the same falls into "line your pockets as quickly as you can before this honeypot gets rumbled" model.
I wonder if there are any deciding factors?
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
