UKC

2 years to widen a motorway, 10 years to build a railway, 18 months to put a new escalator in at Euston station, 1 hour on hold to a customer services department, getting blood from a stone at your car insurance claims department, hidden fees and charges on airlines, travel companies who hide building sites, hacking phones...

Any more?

In reply to Eric the Red:

But of course our programs are not at all affected by the responses from the public sector in such things as inspections, health and safety, permits, planning and a host of other interactions where the turnaround times are often three or four times (or more) than in provate industry.

CDM 2007 lays out the amount of time an MC or architect should have to plan a job safely, once this is accomplished, I can quite safely mobilise all the required contractors to site with less than 14 days notice. That's how fast we can move.
Public sector requires weeks, even months to action a job number. And when they hand it on to the next person in the line, they treat it again as a new action and say "we've only had it two weeks" when your application may have been in two months!

Seriously, know what you're talking about before you make bloody stupid comments.

In reply to Eric the Red:

bill fees = keep job

bill no fees = no job

In reply to Eric the Red: As said by others - they are controlled by the public sector on these projects ... They will be sticking their oar in left right and centre.

In reply to Eric the Red:

may be wrong, but I'm assuming this is in response to the thread on the public sector.If so, certainly for the first bunch of responses, the topic was performance of staff, not the company.

As a company the business might be doing badly (or doing well partly by saving money by shortstaffing their call centres to answer that point) but the staff may be overworked, underpaid, and stressed as hell trying ot meet ever changing targets.

Now I'm not saying that might not happen in the public sector, I'm just saying if you want to start a debate (or bun fight as it appears) by referencing/responding to another thread then at least get it like for like.

Otherwise you're just having a bitch.

In reply to Eric the Red:

All public sector projects controlled by public sector authorities

>1 hour on hold to a customer services department, getting blood from a stone at your car insurance claims department, hidden fees and charges on airlines, travel companies who hide building sites, hacking phones...

Yep, all pretty indefensible, however, you have a choice whether to continue using those companies or using their competitors instead. When we get the same p1ss poor service from the Inland Revenue, NHS, Police or Local Authority, there is no alternative but to carry on paying for poor service through our taxes.

In reply to teflonpete:


canyou tell me which telecoms company i should use then? because the customer service from last three have all been dreadful. really, really dreadful.

including making appointments to visit in a 6 hour window, but just not turning up twice in succession

and continuing to charge me for a phone line at a property i no longer owned, and had cancelled the contract for months earlier.

this is meant to be a competitive sector; but when all the options are equally poor, it makes a mockery of the concept of choice

In reply to Gunboat_Diplomat: For someone who appears to be single-handedly saving the world by building more supermarkets, you spend an awful lot of the day on here.

In reply to Scarab9: Oh the irony! Which I presume is lost on you.

In reply to wayno265:

I'm on the dole really.

Or perhaps, I am SO f*cking good, I get most of my work done before about 09:30, change out of my skin tight superhero costume and come on here to brighten your day.

AND still get paid.
I don't even do chores, I have a cleaner for that

Terrible, isn't it?

In reply to teflonpete:


Not quite true. You can buy private health insurance, move to a tax haven, hire your own security guards, have your children educated privately and have your bins emptied by private contractors... if you wanted to.

In reply to EeeByGum:

If you have enough money you can move to a tax haven, if you haven't then you're stuck with it. Hiring your own security guards, having private health insurance and having your children educated privately doesn't mean you get a tax reduction, so you're still paying for state supplied services you no longer use. However, if you don't like the quality of service at Tesco and go to Morrison's instead, Tesco don't get any of your money.

In reply to Eric the Red:

There seems to be one quite large private sector company where not having a clue what your staff are doing* is enough to reward you with a very big promotion.

*Assuming Rebekah Brooks really didn't know what was going in her newsroom. But I'm not sure I believe her. In which case, being a liar is enough to reward you with a very big promotion.

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

Utilities are notoriously bad, I had no end of problems with switching from Npower a few years ago. Like I said, in some cases its indefensible. Ever tried getting a problem with your income tax or council tax sorted? It's no better and there aren't any options either.

In reply to Eric the Red:
2 years to widen a motorway, 10 years to build a railway, 18 months to put a new escalator in at Euston station, 1 hour on hold to a customer services department, getting blood from a stone at your car insurance claims department, hidden fees and charges on airlines, travel companies who hide building sites, hacking phones...

Public private partnerships; when limited competancy meets unlimited greed. 9 times out of 10 it is because some idiot signed an open ended cost+ contract that incentivises waste. Most of these schemes that I've been indirectly involved with have balloned out of proportion because the initial contracts were fudged and no one had the authority or inclination to fix it.

In reply to teflonpete:


I completely agree, but the fact is that you still have that option. However in a market economy, if you haven't got enough money then tough luck Jack!

In reply to EeeByGum:

What option? Where in the UK can I go to live tax free?

In reply to wayno265:

ooh ain't you witty. So exactly what from my response gave you enough information to presume so much about ...hmm...my intellect, sense of humour, it could be one of a few things so I'll let you clarify before presuming you're just a miserable, cynical c*nt who hasn't the imagination or cognitive capacity to form a better insult.

In reply to Scarab9: Here, have a question mark:

?

In reply to teflonpete:

I think you need to be rich to do that. That's ironic as well.

In reply to wayno265:

I know! :0)

In reply to wayno265:

I feel an Alanis Morrisette moment coming on...

In reply to teflonpete:

Become self employed. Set up a couple of off shore trusts. Seems to work well enough for our Lords and Masters. Anyone not working for the state who is on PAYE is a mug.

Regards

D

In reply to Gunboat_Diplomat:

You live in a very black and white world where private sector is good, public sector is bad. Lots of people do, I thought I'd provide some balance.

I had to renew my passport the other day - the service was amazing and the turnaround was very, very quick.

I had to renew my car insurance, the service was slow and they got it wrong.

There are good and bad staff in each sector, I know that, having worked in both.

In reply to Eric the Red:


Very true, not forgetting that there are also good and bad systems in both sectors too.

In reply to Eric the Red:

I don't care about car insurance. You can go to someone else and I am not forced to pay that particular company.

I do care with the public sector where I DO have to pay.
However, I do realise that many parts of the public sector have to fulfill remits that are outside of those required by many public sector companies. But in general, I think private companies are usually much more efficient.

In reply to Gunboat_Diplomat:
I take it you're excluding the financial sector?

In reply to Eric the Red:
>

Yep.

In the private sector in areas where there's lots of competition then service tends can be good. Conversely, like in the building industry, competition on price results in a race to the bottom and the results are almost universally appalling.

Where there isn't a lot of competition for whatever reason, such as in banking, service is crap as well.

In reply to Bob Kemp:

Why? overal we have made a LOT of money from the financial sector. Had the government restrained them during the boom years, all that would have happened is the business would have gone elsewhere and we'd have missed ten years of large tax revenues and full employment. We'd still have had a recession because our exports would still have gone to pot.
The cost of the bailout is tiny compared to the revenues generated, and where we have had public control of part or all of a bank, we own shares which when sold will return a healthy profit (If the public sector can manage to grasp the economics of selling at a profit of course)

I have a sensible and pragmatic view of how the world really works.
Besides, I was cash richh going into the recession (a deliberate policy, not accident) and actually made money from the recession, with Barclays shares bought at 63p, Aviva shares around the £1.50 mark and a few others to boot. All in all, I've no complaints....... but that's because I had a weather eye looking out for myself. Which is what people OUGHT to do.

In reply to Gunboat_Diplomat:
looking out for myself. Which is what people OUGHT to do.

Maggie taught you well...