Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Vaccination update

I have always enjoyed working for startups in the technology sector for the very same reasons. If there was no defined process before then it is not wrong, but probably sub-optimal. Onwards and upwards. The only company I have worked for which was large but rapid was Sun on the cusp of Y2K. An amazing experience.

I made a lot of money challenging the not invented here mentality.

It was a very interesting read and demonstrated quite clearly the inadequacies of the Civil Service (CS) to create a dynamic environment to meet an evolving high risk venture. I know from experience as I spent some time in the CS in the late 90's in an IT Division with the sole purpose to bring in financial and commercial practises prior to outsourcing by the then Labour Government.

Coming from industry, it was quite a culture shock, I quickly found why they had to bring external expertise in, best typified by a very thin main stream CS expertise in any given discipline/ profession, The CS is very good at producing generalists who can adapt during their career and may switch paths according to the opportunities that arise, some may switch from HR to Finance to IT. In general very few in a senior roles had the depth and breadth of experience and knowledge in their current chosen discipline you would find in a comparable role outside the CS. Even the project management tool Prince and Prince 2 is all about creating a process which ensures it always remains collective responsibility and no individual CS takes any personal risk...they are all risk averse.

I remember well one meeting with very senior mangers in which I was doing a presentation, it typified their approach to delivery of a product/service, ,my presentation, was focusing on delivery of the end product, towards the end of the presentation my manager pointed out that I suggest focus more on the process rather than the end product so I could not be criticised no matter what the outcome, if there was a good process in place. I strongly disagreed, achieving the end product/outcome should the aim of process.

I remember when the Euro was being considered and the impact of conversion from Sterling to Euro on the CS computer systems, the project team were recommending that the conversion Sterling to Euro rate should be able to go to 6 decimal places, (for absolute accuracy in the conversion rate) currently the systems could only handle 2 decimal places in the value (pence) , the cost in just one section of the CS, the benefits payment software alone, would run into many thousands of man years of programming effort and they were seriously considering this enormous cost of conversion.

When I pointed out that it was unnecessary to go to six decimal places as the CS had access to the UK Legislature and could introduce either primary or secondary legislation in the form of a Finance Act or statutory instrument to set the new benefit payments in Euros to the existing 2 decimal places, the lowest subdivision of the Euro coinage physically available (cents) and save thousands of man years of programming effort in the process.. They still recommended to Ministers the 6 decimal place change, knowing a Finance Act along with other legislation would have to be introduced to bring the Euro into effect in the UK. No wonder the UK has a massive track record of screwing its IT system changes and thank goodness the Euro did not go ahead as the IT conversion costs were enormous and probably overstated to support the case for keeping Sterling

regards.

I came across a similar situation with HMRC. When in the Tobacco industry we had to supple data to enable tax to be verified. HUGE sums! My responsibility was the weight of finished products leaving the factory. That was the duty collection point, not shops. In effect we collected the tax for HMRC and the factory was a duty free premises.
We used to have a Customs Officer based in each factory. That changed in stages to just occasional visits from their offices. The early on site Officers were very good. The later visitors were hard work. They didn’t have knowledge of the agreed system of sampling plans, statistics, numerical detail. Our system was one that HMRC were pushing other companies to adopt as it was considered the best. We used a combination of an older mainframe system with linked test equipment, industry standard sampling plans, excel to produce summary reports. All verifiable and easily audited. We even paid duty on dust extracted as it contained small amounts (trace) of tobacco in a couple of areas. Having to lead the newer officers through the background to the system was a pain. Explaining the statistical tools caused glazed over eyes despite keeping it basic.

I never got involved in the tobacco side, but I do know that in Nottingham, the local tobacco company brought a cheque every day after 3 o'clock so it had to be banked the next day. Might have been Players.

As an aside the local Police traffic cars in Nottingham at that time were Dolomite Sprints.

How did that go? Two chases and an engine rebuild following a boil up?

For me, one of the most puzzling things about the pandemic is how Jeremy Hunt has gone from being universally hated by the press (to the point of being referred to by the gynaecological reworking of his name) .... to being their go-to pundit on all things pandemic related?? ..... either they criminally misjudged and villified the man .... or the fact he has a name the punters recognise and is willing to make generalised government-critical pronouncements means they're happy to whitewash his reputation for the sake of a few clicks or column inches.

Mystifying!! 🙂

K

Ps ... and Tony Blair

Some commentators are tipping him to replace BJ, so perhaps the papers are positioning to support him? He doesn't seems to have the same baggage as other potential contenders.

He has the wild eyed look of an insane man.

Would you trust him with a loaded gun?