Peter Marples / 3aaa

[jono]

22 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

Easier to control, and more effective? Probably right - but a massive overhead on staffing costs.

In the 1970s that's pretty much how it worked (Manpower Services Commission) - then it was to all intents and purposes privatised in the 1980s and the mushroom farm of middleman "training providers" took hold. But on the upside, the Civil Service no longer had the staffing liabilities it took to run this. They just controlled the money tap that funded the whole shebang. The usual problem with privatisation in that for all the efficiencies, there are pockets of accountability that just fall down the cracks

For something that’s a business that needs to attract and service customers I tend to be pro privatisation but when it comes to distributing government money to “manage” something I have a sense that it is better done by the civil service, or if not be extremely diligent in its oversight. 

[Stive Pesley]

34 minutes ago, jono said:

when it comes to distributing government money to “manage” something I have a sense that it is better done by the civil service, or if not be extremely diligent in its oversight. 

Agreed. Although when I was involved (admittedly 20 years ago) - there was an internal audit team that had one job - which was in theory to do just that. However there was absolutely no way they could audit everything in depth, so they cherry picked to make life easier. KPMG would come in every year and do an external audit, so the internal auditors real focus was on building a solid enough body of "good" evidence to put in front of them to satisfy their criteria. And so it went on - and that's what I mean about the accountability falling down cracks. No one auditing this stuff had the interests of the trainees or the tax-payers at heart. They just wanted to turn up, make out like everything was fine, and take the money. Boxes ticked. ?