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in the telegraph-----

Discussion in 'UK Visa and Immigration Help' started by bigmac, Jul 23, 2014.

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  1. bigmac
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    bigmac Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    bigmac, Jul 23, 2014
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  2. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Hardly surprising the government has a terrible track record on commissioning IT systems that don't work, the only systems I've ever seen written for Government, that worked, were written by small companies prior to the rules that prevented small companies tendering for government work came in back in about 1994.
    oss, Jul 23, 2014
    #2
  3. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Whichever political party is in power they all seem to have the knack of literally throwing billions of pounds away of the tax payers money, if its not a failed NHS IT system then it will be an aircraft carrier that's gone three times over budget.

    They wouldn't get away with it in the private sector.
    Timmers, Jul 23, 2014
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    • Agree Agree x 1
  4. subseastu
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    subseastu I'm Bruce Wayne Lifetime Member

    Its a license to print money when you win a government contract. When I worked in the RFA which comes under the MOD the prices they where getting charged was insane. 6 quid for a hammer, 15 quid for a normal light bulb etc. Once you get onto the list of approved vendors its the gravy train.
    subseastu, Jul 24, 2014
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  5. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    I agree, I have worked on a couple of RFA vessels and I know for a fact the hourly rate went up, sometimes for all the messing about you have to do when dealing with MOD contracts.
    Timmers, Jul 24, 2014
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  6. subseastu
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    subseastu I'm Bruce Wayne Lifetime Member

    Which ones Tim? Can't remember now but what is it you do again?
    subseastu, Jul 25, 2014
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  7. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    I worked on the Black and the Gold Rover when they were having a small refit at Cammel Laird
    Timmers, Jul 25, 2014
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  8. subseastu
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    subseastu I'm Bruce Wayne Lifetime Member

    Lol, the MOD doesn't do small refits!!!! I did on the sister ship Grey down in the Falklands. Weirdly I saw her in here (Olongapo) around 2003, I couldn't believe the old girl was still going. It was a nail when I sailed on her in 1997
    subseastu, Jul 26, 2014
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  9. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    No small refits eh, does that mean they like to throw money away in bigger chunks? :)

    I worked two other RFA vessels as well in Roseyth or Fas Lane cant remember which but I do remember the facility being surrounded by barbed wire and the pier to the ship being quite long.

    I think Fas Lane was when I went on a submarine, cant remember, memory goes when you are getting on LOL

    My father worked as a 6th Engineer on the BP tankers during the war doing the Atlantic runs, he would have loved to have seen some of the more modern ships
    Timmers, Jul 26, 2014
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  10. subseastu
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    subseastu I'm Bruce Wayne Lifetime Member

    Well small refits either get massively extended or massively over budget haha.

    Fas lane will have been the subs, Garloch head is the vessel jetty further up. That's where a lot of the arms are stored in Scotland in the hillside there. Everything from world war 2 torpedos (just in case) to the buckets of sunshine. The piers tens to be quite long incase the ships blow up, they don't take out half of the surrounding countryside / town. When I was on the Fort Victoria we where always out at anchor or put on the outer wall at places like Gib or Plymouth for that reason because of certain things we carried.

    Interesting about your dad, those guys are only just starting to get the recognition they deserve for the contribution and sacrifice for their part in the war. A captain friend of mine is possibly going to belguim soon to represent the merchant navy at the up coming memorial service in august, the 16th I think.
    subseastu, Jul 27, 2014
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  11. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I was involved in trouble shooting a time recording system for Faslane (all one word guys) 20 years ago, a very direct experience of lousy government procurement, the company I worked for was responsible for the mess in the first place as the main design was done by the boss who was just a little bit out of touch, we had put a junior analyst on the job and finally we gave him an utterly useless Irish contractor who was about 25 years old and was asking us basic questions about how to read and write data to a database.

    During development I had been a contractor at this company but working on another project for the Scottish Office, at the end of my contract the company asked me to join full time as they were upset that they had been paying me less than the idiot contractor that screwed up the Faslane job.

    However it was not all our fault, much of the reasons the project got in a mess was that the MOD promised to install an Ethernet network on the base and then totally failed to do that, the result was that a system designed to work over a network had to be re-written to become batch based, the batch version had a hidden flaw, by the time all the clock information had been exported to floppy disk all round the base and then read in to the PC of the base commander it was too late for the data to provide any value in terms of managing the civilian workforce on the base, which was the basic functional requirement of the system.

    We got it all working in the end but it was always crap and really not fit for purpose, our fault because we had not stipulated that it absolutely had to run on a live real time network, their fault because they asked for a rewrite part way through the project to accommodate the lack of a network, also their fault that the contract was written in such a way that they had to pay more for the overrun, although they were able to hold back a final payment until we made it do what they wanted which was a stupid mistake on our part as by that time we were not building what we originally expected to be building.

    Out of three or four government jobs at the time that was the only one that did not go so well at our place and we were one of those small companies I was taking about, but we were good at what we did generally, and we charged sensible money not the insane money that the big consultancies later charged the government.
    oss, Jul 27, 2014
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  12. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Yeah, all those buckets of sunshine are one of things we Scots don't like having in our back yard too much :) they are actually stored at Coulport on Loch Long next loch to the west from the Gare Loch where the Faslane base is.

    I used to live about 14 miles as the crow flies from Coulport, I do remember waking up from the odd nightmare featuring those buckets of sunshine now and again :D
    oss, Jul 27, 2014
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  13. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    In a way you're probably better off living close to them, that way if they go off you wont know much about it :)
    Timmers, Jul 27, 2014
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  14. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I'm not up there anymore Tim, exiled in England for the last 6 years I'm afraid :)
    oss, Jul 27, 2014
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  15. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Seems all the MOD and government contracts run overtime and over budget, its like they don't have professional people in charge of managing the contracts. In my experience they always ask for extra things to be included in the contract that are not really required.

    I worked at RAF Valley for a while and that was the same, doing work in a new maintenance hangar facility costing millions, they were pushing and pushing for the building and all the kit inside to be finished at a certain time which it was. Then I know for a fact it laid empty for a year and then all the high tech stuff inside had to be re-commissioned again before use.
    Timmers, Jul 27, 2014
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  16. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    I like the word exiled :)

    I'm going up to Bonnyrigg near Edinburgh in a couple of weeks to see the ladies aunty, probably pop in to see the castle while we're there.
    Timmers, Jul 27, 2014
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  17. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Yeah, maybe something to do with the fact that the military side have to follow orders and success is measured in terms of having followed those orders.
    oss, Jul 27, 2014
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  18. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Strange how most of these government contracts are messed up, you think they would have learned and done something about it by now.

    Makes me wonder how the high speed railway will go on they are building, will it cost billions of pounds more than budgeted for? probably will.
    Timmers, Jul 27, 2014
    #18
  19. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    They are not being controlled by people who have to make a profit, never thought I would hear myself saying that, but having to make a profit focuses the mind.
    oss, Jul 27, 2014
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  20. Timmers
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    Timmers Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Makes sense to me now why the piers are so long.

    I wouldn't have liked it on the ships doing the Atlantic run, you'd be thinking its just a matter of time before you get hit with a torpedo, must have been an inferno especially when the tankers were hit. My dad told me they sometimes carried planes and ammunition back from the US, something they weren't supposed to do on a tanker. He did get a couple of medals after the war for being in the merchant navy, but as you said, they didn't really get the recognition they deserved but that's war for you. Funny you should mention Belgium, I'm off there in a couple of hours :)
    Timmers, Jul 27, 2014
    #20
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