MoD paid £22 for 65p light bulb..
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
£22, peanuts when you really set your mind to it.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Now when I joined works was done by:
Works and Bricks - Air Ministry Works Directorative, they were replaced by
Bricks and Works - Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, who were in turn replaced by:
Destroyers of Everything - Department of the Environment, who were in turn replaced by:
Portakabins Stuck Anywhere - Public Services Agency, who were in turn replaced by:
wait for it:
Destroy Everything - DE - who employed:
Prime or Regional Prime Contractors. who were supposed to enable us to improve the estate and do away with Annularity of budgets - that didn't last longer than12 months.
When PSA lost the job they walked off site and took all the treasure maps with them. We then had DCRE RE Survey surveying and mapping the estate.
ARRSE were looking at this in depth - turns out its for a light bulb which the MOD buys 4-5 per year, not your average light bulb.
More interestingly is the lack of MOD response to this - it usually comes out with very defensive lines setting out whats going on. Here there is nothing, no lines, no rebuttal, just silence. It feels like the first stage of a media set up - PR11 cuts anyone?
More interestingly is the lack of MOD response to this - it usually comes out with very defensive lines setting out whats going on. Here there is nothing, no lines, no rebuttal, just silence. It feels like the first stage of a media set up - PR11 cuts anyone?
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
DII/F
If you really want profligate spending look at DII and its precursors.
Stations wired with fibres at £18 per metre only for it to be discarded a few years later.
DII/c wiring discarded in under a year.
DII/f really got the bug - DII/f=2 x QE CVs.
We needed a hole in a wall in the office - 5 inch breeze block. The cost was £120. I was told the cost was the agreed rate for a hole be it in the home counties of the Falklands.
Dii/f sucks and provides little more than email and Office. If you want anything else then it costs buckets to get it acredited.
Stations wired with fibres at £18 per metre only for it to be discarded a few years later.
DII/c wiring discarded in under a year.
DII/f really got the bug - DII/f=2 x QE CVs.
We needed a hole in a wall in the office - 5 inch breeze block. The cost was £120. I was told the cost was the agreed rate for a hole be it in the home counties of the Falklands.
Dii/f sucks and provides little more than email and Office. If you want anything else then it costs buckets to get it acredited.
There was a great howling and knashing of teeth is the USA about fifteen years ago. Some firm, either Lockheed or Boeing, were charging $100s for a hammer in an engine change kit. After that row standard overcharging came to a grinding halt.
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Tuned into to BBC Radio 5 to-day half expecting lots of angry calls from the Public over this story. If anything the opposite was the case with many pointing out that Health & Safety or Maintainance Contracts stopped them as individuals from buying or changing light bulbs and pretty much anything else not in their job description. This all looks like what happens when you mix H&S legislation and a compensation culture
If it's was a PR11 stunt by MOD it may have served instead to show how much waste their now is in both Private and Public Sectors due to Government Legislation
If it's was a PR11 stunt by MOD it may have served instead to show how much waste their now is in both Private and Public Sectors due to Government Legislation
Thread Starter
There was a great howling and knashing of teeth is the USA about fifteen years ago. Some firm, either Lockheed or Boeing, were charging $100s for a hammer in an engine change kit. After that row standard overcharging came to a grinding halt.
PN, surely MPBW were always 'Ministry of Public Blunders and Wonders'?
DOE we called 'Doomwatch' after the contemporary 'environmental' TV programme.
PSA was 'Painting Stuff Again', because all their vehicles had to be repainted with the new name and logo!
As for all the people threatening our offices with pointless computer cabling, words fail me. In those days I found it easier to use my own laptop and a GSM connecting cable. The CIS-pigs had no idea that it was so easy (but pricey) to connect to the Internet back then......
*which, of course, doesn't exist. Or does it.....
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Todays BBC news concerned MoD £22 light bulbs that are actually 'worth' 65p.
In my own little world, I was booked into a hotel for a duty travel overnight stop next week. Booked via HRG the cost (B&B) is £70. I went online and could have got the same for £59 without even trying for MoD discount. All these companies involved in procurement, development, flight testing, research, hotel bookings, white fleet MT, etc etc are taking the MoD budget for a ride.
The BritMil Plc would have better spent their energy in finding savings from financial wastage rather then the Payroll IMHO. ....and a day away would be far better financed by Sqn GPC and Std Rates for subsistance; it would save a fortune.
In my own little world, I was booked into a hotel for a duty travel overnight stop next week. Booked via HRG the cost (B&B) is £70. I went online and could have got the same for £59 without even trying for MoD discount. All these companies involved in procurement, development, flight testing, research, hotel bookings, white fleet MT, etc etc are taking the MoD budget for a ride.
The BritMil Plc would have better spent their energy in finding savings from financial wastage rather then the Payroll IMHO. ....and a day away would be far better financed by Sqn GPC and Std Rates for subsistance; it would save a fortune.
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DiiF is an MOD Clasic.
DiiC was fairly good and was rattling along well. The C contract runs out and to get "Best Value" the MOD go out to Tender for the F contract. The Main Contractor for C has a good relationship with the MOD and tells them that the Tender is not that well written and they, through the 5 years of C have detailed carefully what F will actually cost. C contractor is 1st out the door during the 'contract award' process!! The winner, EDS as was, cost on what the MOD Tender says - then some 8 weeks AFTER the contract is signed just as so many here will relate to, basically go- "Oh you want it done like that - we didnt cost for that" Result was that by the time they had "re-calculated" the costs it was significantly more than what the C contractor had priced! Best Value - my arse!! For example, I couldnt believe the number of people turning up at Pre-start meetings! For an equivalent job on C there would be 6\7 people covering design, PM, Site and MOD NOW we had 22 people turning up!!! Most had never worked on a Military site and some only had a vague knowledge of IT and how to install the cabling\kit.
I could write a book on the Life and Times of Dii - by my calculation F cost the MOD some 65% more per TAP than C - Best Value? I think not and as a taxpayer I couldnt believe how gullible certain people at the MOD were\still are.
DiiC was fairly good and was rattling along well. The C contract runs out and to get "Best Value" the MOD go out to Tender for the F contract. The Main Contractor for C has a good relationship with the MOD and tells them that the Tender is not that well written and they, through the 5 years of C have detailed carefully what F will actually cost. C contractor is 1st out the door during the 'contract award' process!! The winner, EDS as was, cost on what the MOD Tender says - then some 8 weeks AFTER the contract is signed just as so many here will relate to, basically go- "Oh you want it done like that - we didnt cost for that" Result was that by the time they had "re-calculated" the costs it was significantly more than what the C contractor had priced! Best Value - my arse!! For example, I couldnt believe the number of people turning up at Pre-start meetings! For an equivalent job on C there would be 6\7 people covering design, PM, Site and MOD NOW we had 22 people turning up!!! Most had never worked on a Military site and some only had a vague knowledge of IT and how to install the cabling\kit.
I could write a book on the Life and Times of Dii - by my calculation F cost the MOD some 65% more per TAP than C - Best Value? I think not and as a taxpayer I couldnt believe how gullible certain people at the MOD were\still are.
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DofQ can really catch you out. I ordered 100 tie wraps for servicing kits but failed to notice that the DofQ was 1000. As they were C class (and therefore nonreturnable) I had 100,000 of the buggers to dispose of.
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In my own little world, I was booked into a hotel for a duty travel overnight stop next week. Booked via HRG the cost (B&B) is £70. I went online and could have got the same for £59 without even trying for MoD discount.
We were having our monthly "get it off your chest" pow wow and she raised it as an example of waste. What we were told was that we had paid the travel agency that we use for that booking the £110 - but at the end of the financial year we get proportion of the money we've spent with them refunded and depending on how high that total spend is it can be up to 50%.
Things are not always as simple as they seem !
Last edited by earth-bound; 4th Mar 2011 at 20:51. Reason: Edited for typo
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I remember something similar at Bruggen in the 70s. Someone wanted 100 strips of PSP and placed the requisite demand. Unfortunately, the DofQ was tons and no-one noticed. The problem was only discovered when a convoy of ten-ton trucks turned up at the hangar.
Tiger_mate,
You may find that your internet offer for a hotel is fully paid for in advance and not refundable nor can be cancelled.
Booked through HRG you will find that the price reflects a booking that can be cancelled.
Should individuals book through the internet and pay in advance, then find meetings etc cancelled, I would suspect all would put in their claims anyhow meaning the public purse pays for meetings etc not even attended - press would have a field day!!
Naturally some bookings can be done which can be cancelled and everyone can do so up to the limits specified unde current regulations.
Nivsy
You may find that your internet offer for a hotel is fully paid for in advance and not refundable nor can be cancelled.
Booked through HRG you will find that the price reflects a booking that can be cancelled.
Should individuals book through the internet and pay in advance, then find meetings etc cancelled, I would suspect all would put in their claims anyhow meaning the public purse pays for meetings etc not even attended - press would have a field day!!
Naturally some bookings can be done which can be cancelled and everyone can do so up to the limits specified unde current regulations.
Nivsy
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The cancellation terms on the HRG booking paperwork are exactly the same as available to anyone making a booking according the the hotel website. As i have to pay the bill before departure anyway the HRG input into the whole affair is nothing positive beyond adding 8% booking fee and the full cost to the MoD account at a time when subsidised accomodation is available.
The taxpayer part of me thinks the monopoly is very wrong.
The taxpayer part of me thinks the monopoly is very wrong.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dallas
In fact, it would probably take 2 blokes because of the working at height issue. You could probably add another couple of £100s to the 'repair' bill, but on the up side they would probably do lots at once :-)
Nah, to replace the red light in the top of the tower - 70 feet - they could not use the vertical ladder - non-compliant, so a scafolding firm was brought in to erect a scafold access from the ground to the top of the tower.
£22, peanuts when you really set your mind to it.
Originally Posted by dallas
In fact, it would probably take 2 blokes because of the working at height issue. You could probably add another couple of £100s to the 'repair' bill, but on the up side they would probably do lots at once :-)
Nah, to replace the red light in the top of the tower - 70 feet - they could not use the vertical ladder - non-compliant, so a scafolding firm was brought in to erect a scafold access from the ground to the top of the tower.
£22, peanuts when you really set your mind to it.
Little Birdie told me ages ago, so cannot verify, but the rumour was 2 jags Prescotts cars that he used were actually supplied by a company in Nottingham, so every time he needed a car to drive a couple of hundred yards across London, they had to travel from Notts to London, move him, then travel back to Notts!!!!!!!!!!
That is where our taxes go!!!!!!!
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Tiger_mate,
You may find that your internet offer for a hotel is fully paid for in advance and not refundable nor can be cancelled.
Booked through HRG you will find that the price reflects a booking that can be cancelled.
Should individuals book through the internet and pay in advance, then find meetings etc cancelled, I would suspect all would put in their claims anyhow meaning the public purse pays for meetings etc not even attended - press would have a field day!!
Naturally some bookings can be done which can be cancelled and everyone can do so up to the limits specified unde current regulations.
You may find that your internet offer for a hotel is fully paid for in advance and not refundable nor can be cancelled.
Booked through HRG you will find that the price reflects a booking that can be cancelled.
Should individuals book through the internet and pay in advance, then find meetings etc cancelled, I would suspect all would put in their claims anyhow meaning the public purse pays for meetings etc not even attended - press would have a field day!!
Naturally some bookings can be done which can be cancelled and everyone can do so up to the limits specified unde current regulations.
I've never cancelled accommodation outside of 24 hrs prior to arrival and incurred any charge whatsoever. If MoD cops it it is THEY who are ****ing up.
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I left a long time ago - so forgive any inaccuracy!
We'd just taken delivery of the Tornado. It became quickly apparent that there were no steps to plug into the cockpit coaming to allow ingress/egress at Stations not equipped to handle the a/c. And being a new type it was welcome everywhere!
Allegedly a requirement was sent to BAE - after churning it through the 'pooter a quote for £57 000 per stair set was submitted. It reached us at TTTE.
The unofficial TTTE response was that a fleet of Rolls-Royce be purchased. one parked at every aerodrome and the intrepid Tornado duo deplane via the roof of the R-R, as in those days the top of the range Roller went for less than £50k.
We'd just taken delivery of the Tornado. It became quickly apparent that there were no steps to plug into the cockpit coaming to allow ingress/egress at Stations not equipped to handle the a/c. And being a new type it was welcome everywhere!
Allegedly a requirement was sent to BAE - after churning it through the 'pooter a quote for £57 000 per stair set was submitted. It reached us at TTTE.
The unofficial TTTE response was that a fleet of Rolls-Royce be purchased. one parked at every aerodrome and the intrepid Tornado duo deplane via the roof of the R-R, as in those days the top of the range Roller went for less than £50k.
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Low energy light bulbs are 10p each in a leading UK supermarket however, were it to be true, £22 for something that enters service at 65p is a pretty good deal compared to spending £8 billion on something that never enters service at a cost of minus 200 million!