Home Office waves a cool £1bn to outsource handling of British visa, citizenship applications The UK Home Office is set to begin talking to tech and outsourcing services suppliers to assess how the Visas and Citizenship (V&C) Directorate can hand over large chunks of its operations to the private sector in deals that could be worth up to £1bn. A procurement notice said that V&C, part of the UK Visas and Immigration …
Incredible ...
The UK insists in handling its affairs to the private sector, whose main and only interest is to make money with the least effort.
Is this is to keep some part of the government bureaucracy running smoothly and efficiently?
Must be a joke.
Let's take, for example (there are many others), a pharmaceutical corporation.
Are they in the business of ensuring the population is and remains healthy?
No.
They are in the business of making money by selling drugs, which may or may not cure different illnesses.
If they actually go into the business of ensuring the population is and remains healthy (and are good at it) they'll make much less money and maybe even go out of business.
This is all utter rubbish and the results of this policy are there for everyone to see: hospitals, NHS, PPP schemes, railoads, public transport, military recruitment, public housing, and so on.
The list is as long as the failures encountered, with a huge cost to the common man.
You cannot put public matters in private hands, it's a recipe for ruin.
O.
For the most part I agree with you, but things with measurable outcomes (public transport springs to mind) _should_ be able to work under the private sector (even though I know they don't). If it's a continuous "provide a service doing x for y people" then there's no reason a private company can't do the same.
The "main and only interest of making money with the least effort" is equivalent to the public sector's aim of getting the most benefit from spending as little as possible. Neither side likes waste, the difference is that the private sector get to pocket more if there's less waste, whereas the public sector get their budget cut if they spend less.
Let's face it though, the only reason any of these things are outsourced is because the people outsourcing them either own companies or have friends who own companies that do that kind of work
the private sector, whose main and only interest is to make money with the least effort.
When it's my tax money being spent, I expect it to be used to get best results for least expense, no matter whether it is a public or private organization spending it.
Past experience has shown that the public sector does not understand the concept of "value for money" in the slightest.
... experience has shown that the public sector does not understand the concept of "value for money" in the slightest. ...
Hmmm ...
Value for money ...
Yes, I've heard of it.
But it depends heavily on who is evaluating, what they are evaluating and basically if they are actually valuating the right things. ie: everything, particularly things cannot be translated into money/dividends.
As things stand, the private sector has clearly shown, at every chance it's had, what their concept of "value for money" is:
The most money for them with the least value for the rest of us.
As such, it is absolutely at odds with the aim of ensuring common good, general welfare and security and the well-being of everyone in the nation.
Clearly a task for the state to undertake.
Examples abound all around the world, not only in the UK.
No need to get into the details.
O.
Yes because the GPO (BT), British Gas, The Electricity Boards and British Rail were so much better that current private sector version.
Want a phone? Well you can rent one and we'll fit it in six months time.
Need central? You'll have to buy it from you local gas board shop and have it fitted eventually by a British Gas engineer.
Want a gas cooker? See above.
Want a train? Good luck, it may turn up and you may have to stand in the guards van...if you are lucky.
Unfortunately, we have rose tinted glasses.
Public utility companies in the 70's and early 80s were utterly shit monopolies, with no incentive to improve.
Private sector CAN be better in many cases, because it's not hamstrung with overly complex bureaucracy.
All that said, many things such as Visas, really shouldn't be outsourced, as you need to keep a handle on who and where it is being carried out.
And when the Water Boards were privatised (and I think most people would agree that water is a fairly essential commodity), one of the first things that happened was the laying off of the hill-workers who kept the drainage culverts clear, which resulted in empty reservoirs the next warm summer - cue hospipe bans and water rationing (while still not fixing leaky mains supplies).
Never privatise national infrastructure is a very useful maxim for good governance.
GPO was in the process of gearing up to roll out full fibre before it was privatised, then they sold of the fabs to boost dividends
British Rail ran a comparable service to most operators, and considerably better than southern or northern, at a considerably lower cost, and were working on new technology to revolutionise rail travel.
public utilities worked and costs were ok, and service is provided by the OTT providers.
IMHO, infrastructure tshould be nationalised, services should be pulic.
This is just going to be another woeful public service provided at lowest cost by the lowest paid for more than it would cost to run in house.
The whole thing is about publicising risk and privatising profit.
Having been thru the visa process back when it only cost loads of money and wasnt utter shite (2013 to 2019) i cant but help feel sorry for all the poor souls who have to endure the abysmal fustercluck that it is now.
I wonder how the 3 million chinese about to arrrive will feel about this or do they already have passports?
Crapita, Fujitsu and all the other parasitic services giants that make all their money by swindling the tax payer.
Delivery and usage:
Will be late
Will not work properly
Will probably be run from India etc as it is cheaper
Will cost more than budgeted
And for the successful bidder see it as a success (financially) as they cannot lose.
I am not sure how a system can cost that much, £1 billion is an awful lot even when you years of contract in place.
As a beastly colonial whose forebears were thrown out of the Old Dart some 200+ years ago, can I just say...
DON'T DO IT!
It's a government's prerogative to say who can enter and who can be a citizen. Unless it's under direct ministerial control, it will eventually go to hell in a handbasket. Comments above about the agendas of private commercial concerns are spot on the money. Privatisation of core government functions under the guise of saving taxpayer shekels are never a good thing. Tears at bedtime inevitably follow.
Wow. Government privatizing the handling of its border control. UK Gov has obviously not had enough examples of IT stuff going wrong, and can't help but set up a new line of funding for the same coterie of incapable sloths who are going to have a new trough to plunge in.
What can possibly go wrong ?
I can't wait to see what the bribe will be to source a UK passport. If they outsource to a firm in Morocco or India, it could be much cheaper than what it would cost if the company was inside the UK.
There are some things that are the provenance of government. Passports and immigration documents are one of those things.
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