Carillion goes to the wall !

[railtechnician]

The company was too large with too many fingers in too many pies thanks in no small part to our politicians far too eager to outsource anything and everything to get it off the government books. A false economy in that outsourcing to the lowest bidder is apparently what governments of all persuasions seem to think is best. Yet again the taxpayer will have to dig deep to provide cover for a pensions black hole, possibly find jobs for thousands of redundant workers and find new contractors to tackle the many projects that will otherwise not be started or completed.
One has to ask why a company is not forced by legislation to pay its way, no company should be allowed to run a pension scheme with a deficit but it seems to have become the norm in the UK and elsewhere. Competent and sensible people know that the cheapest bidder is not necessarily value for money but our politicians don't seem to grasp the idea despite the failure of LUL PPP which many of us knew would never work, the collapse of Jarvis, hospital PFI deals pushing the NHS into ever greater losses as it tries to service the debt.
Private enterprise is said to 'be more efficient and better at doing so much' when compared to the public sector. Whether that is true or not is debatable but what is true is that private enterprise exists to make money and pay dividends to shareholders first and foremost.

The government needs a rethink and our politicians need to change their habits, so much that has been outsourced in the recent decades really needs to be back in the public sector, it is the UK taxpayers that should be reaping the available £rewards of reinvestment and not private company executives and shareholders lining their pockets with £taxpayers billions.     

[Nortube]

It's a disgrace.

Whilst I've not followed it in great detail, two things strike me:

1)  They subcontracted lots of work to smaller firms, using the excuse "it's what the government want". I'm sure that Carillon wouldn't have done it unless it was a benefit to themselves - probably financially. Whatever the reason, the consequence is that it's screwed all of those firms.

2) Executives who left but were still due to get paid for the next year, plus bonuses etc. (although I think that's all now been blocked). It looks like they were jumping ship but making sure that they were nicely provided for.

Various governments have a lot to answer for. Between them they've sold the country (is anything actually owned by UK companies any more) and seem hell bent on screwing up anything that they missed. I wonder just how much of the past 20+ years gains from all this have ended up in ministers / pals pockets!

[railtechnician]

Jan 19, 2018 11:13:04 GMT Nortube said:

It's a disgrace.

Whilst I've not followed it in great detail, two things strike me:

1)  They subcontracted lots of work to smaller firms, using the excuse "it's what the government want". I'm sure that Carillon wouldn't have done it unless it was a benefit to themselves - probably financially. Whatever the reason, the consequence is that it's screwed all of those firms.

2) Executives who left but were still due to get paid for the next year, plus bonuses etc. (although I think that's all now been blocked). It looks like they were jumping ship but making sure that they were nicely provided for.

Various governments have a lot to answer for. Between them they've sold the country (is anything actually owned by UK companies any more) and seem hell bent on screwing up anything that they missed. I wonder just how much of the past 20+ years gains from all this have ended up in ministers / pals pockets!

Exactly!

There's a "gravy train" look to what has gone on and it smacks of incompetence by the recent governments ever since wholesale privatisation of anything and everything service and utility began in the 1980s. A few have made a lot of money at taxpayer expense while for most of us our once Great Britain has become a shadow of its heritage and is effectively bankrupt as far as the general populus is concerned.
The trouble with politicians is that they see the job as a career rather than a public service, there really ought to be a limit upon how many years they can be MPs before they are dispensed with. There is much else that I would like to see MPs forced to accept, a fixed salary while serving as an MP, no 'other' employment and no other income while in office, no second home or paid expenses and a scrutiny committee to determine what £bonus and what £pension entitlement they are due at the end of their service as MP dependent upon their performance over the entire time in office. I think 10 years is long enough for anyone to serve as an MP regardless of whether or not they gain a ministerial post or manage to become Prime Minister.
As for companies contracted by the government for any work, there should be a tighter rein on what they are allowed to do in terms of employee rights, the inability to provide accepted levels of £pension rights should be a barrier to being able to tender for government contracts. There should also be enforceable rules regarding the distribution of profits as management and employee bonuses and effective limits upon the salaries and perks awarded to managers if necessary by the reintroduction of income tax up to 97.5% for the highest incomes as it once was decades ago. There is absolutely no justification for the disproportionately high salaries of executives who may be good at pushing paperwork around their desks, eating out at business lunches and wheeler dealing as they don't actually produce anything more than ideas and decisions and are in financial terms unproductive. Naturally one expects them to take higher levels of responsibility than the workforce and for that a higher salary is appropriate but not at ten, twenty or more times that of the lowest paid worker in the company.
When a main contractor employs subcontractors to do work they should not only pay the workers salaries but also pay into the workers pensions too. No subcontractor should go bust or otherwise suffer cash flow problems because a main contractor gets into difficulty and no main contractor should be able to trade without paying into a failure contingency scheme.

It's all wishful thinking of course as few politicians and no privateers would want to work under such terms fearing poverty due to poor decision making at best and incompetence at worst after years in a job but so much needs serious consideration, party politics simply doesn't work. There is little or nothing to choose between the parties and perhaps a permanent coalition of left, centre and right in a more reflective and truer democracy elected by proportional representation, rather than first past the post, and with long term, rather than short term, planning of the economy, infrastructure and further development of the UK is a better way for the future than what is called 'democracy' today but in many ways is anything but! 

Personally I would like to see all the utilities and transport services in public ownership once more and for banks to repay in full to government coffers the vast sums involved in their bailout of the noughties. I'd also like to see all the government PFI deals that are set to fleece the taxpayer for years to come renegotiated with lower payments and shorter terms, non-UK nationals being forbidden from owning UK properties and businesses, HS2 shelved and a proper 30 year transportion plan incorporating the whole UK road network, bus, rail including light rail, air services and infrastructure to develop the country in a meaningful and 'green' way to serve the whole population of the UK rather than the lucky few.

As ever it is always the man or woman in the street who ends up paying one way or another for the incompetence of some politicians and the greed of some business executives. If things go on as they are I suspect that in time there will be a rebellion of some kind, Brexit was only the beginning of voter dissatisfaction with our politicians but there is o much more to grumble about, not least of which is the loss of so much transport infrastructure across the nation outside the large population centres and the diabolical road congestion and pollution within them.