So, the UK border agency is essentially, an utter shower of ****

[7evens]

Typical public sector, couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29805830

[Pat Vegas]

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2238175-eddie-bravo-arres ted-in-the-uk-deported-back-to-us (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2238175-eddie-bravo-arrested-in-the-uk-deported-back-to-us)

[Witharby 2-3 weeks]

We organised many successful piss-ups actually. Especially the bus and train drivers of London Transport as it was.

[Classic Jorge]

or by them being split in two and being taken back under control of the home office who are themselves an utter shambles.

Of course, it's all the fault of the public sector workers. It's easier to blame them than look at any of the wider context or factors.

[dismalswamp]

[7evens]

They've made a catalogue of errors and as has been widely reported.
Over 1 billion wasted on failed IT projects with no processes introduced to rectify these failings.

[7evens]

system and having to live in limbo while someone makes a decision.
250k people unaccounted for. You couldn't make it up :hehe:

[Classic Jorge]

The UKBA doesn't exist any more, it was an amalgamation of three or four fairly disparate agencies which in itself only existed for four years and has since been split in two and had its funding significantly reduced.

These are pretty difficult conditions for any organisation to survive in, let alone excel.

It's a failing of a few governments, if you ask me, but at least Labour actually threw more funding at it in an effort to sort it out, rather than talk tough on immigration whilst underfunding the organisations involved and seeing the immigration caseload skyrocket.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

If you get someone in to do IT stuff, and it doesn't work, why would you pay them?

[7evens]

You know how these things work http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/ohwell.gif

[Classic Jorge]

You can thank HP and IBM for this 6bn write off

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/09/universal-cr edit-it-writeoff-iain-duncan-smith (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/09/universal-credit-it-writeoff-iain-duncan-smith)

[Brentwood]

with a degree in hotel management, trying to run very complex IT projects

The orgs often have a good idea, to make things more efficient by building an IT system. Fine. However, the first thing they do is to comission expensive consultants (even this tender process can take months, burning money) from Deloitte or Accenture to work on a project which spans many years. Over that time, managers change and come in with new requirements, which the consultants happily accomodate. At the same time, the consultants need access to staff who will be working on the system, to find out exactly what they need. these people are unavailable because they are doing their day jobs, so the pace of requirments gathering is sloooow. Again, the consultancies quite like this.


The BBC's Digital Media Initiative project is a good example of that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Media_Initiative


I have also heard of several TFL projects which were just scrapped, having cost millions and millions

In a nutshell, they can't just not pay, because it is the buyer's responsibility to define what they want, and the consultancies usually do deliver just that.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

OK, thanks for clarifying that, Comrade.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Don't you know anything mate?

[Classic Jorge]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

kick in?

Interesting.

[Brentwood]

https://twitter.com/oldpicsarchive/status/522872159916797953 (https://twitter.com/oldpicsarchive/status/522872159916797953)

[Classic Jorge]

Continue to dry hump 7evens in your joyless orgy of collective ignorance.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

She was so rubbish she was even late decimating the mining industry.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

You've chosen the buzz word at random from your list of Owen Jones approved words, and found a Guardian article to illustrate it. :clap:

It could just as easily have been 'America', 'Thatcher' or 'banker', of course.

[Classic Jorge]

...to handle the next round of infrastructure sell offs.

Not only do they get to buy swathes of these new undervalued shares but they also advise their clients to buy them and claim bonuses on them too.

wd UBS, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Merrill Lynch

[Brentwood]

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/56379000/gif/_56379303_decline_uk_coal_624gr.gif

[Brentwood]

on the cheap?

Something about them shooting up in price shortly afterwards (as many predicted) but then stabilising back around the price they were sold for? May be wrong though

[Classic Jorge]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/105596 95/Francis-Maude-Implementation-of-Universal-Credit-was-pret ty-lamentable.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10559695/Francis-Maude-Implementation-of-Universal-Credit-was-pretty-lamentable.html)

Or CPGB funded ComputerworldUK: http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3582955/un iversal-credit-it-write-offs-will-reach-500m-claims-hodge/ (http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3582955/universal-credit-it-write-offs-will-reach-500m-claims-hodge/)

Or the Stalinist think tank policy wonks at the NAO:
http://www.nao.org.uk/report/universal-credit-early-progress -2/ (http://www.nao.org.uk/report/universal-credit-early-progress-2/)

[Classic Jorge]

From memory I think they valued Mount Pleasant at 350m :hehe:

[barrybueno]