It's time we were told all about ETS
James Forsyth 2:11pmOne of the things that has come out in the Sats scandal is how there was a complete failure to do due diligence on ETS, a company whose track record did not inspire confidence. It now turns out that even after the problems with Sats had begun to emerge, the Immigration Service approved the use of ETS testing to assess immigrants’ knowledge of English; the tests form part of the new points-based approach to immigration. The consequences of these tests being messed up in the same way that the Sats have been are horrendous. Immigrants could be refused the right to work here or put on the path to citizenship on the basis on inaccurate marks.
The government now needs to both publish the contract with ETS—it is a scandal that taxpayers can’t see a contract that is being paid for using their money, when there is no national security justification for keeping the contract private—and reveal what communication there has been within government about ETS. It is remarkable that a contract worth more than £150 million appears to have been awarded without even the most preliminary of checks.
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Dr Blue
July 21st, 2008 2:25pm Report this commentIf this government is not checked similar poor contracts with worse delivery will soon be signed in healthcare as well.
Expensive, ineffective, poor value for money, not fit for purpose.
Why do politicians automatically assume private is so much more efficient than state provision?
Private provision is good for fixed goals and purposes. It's good when customers and suppliers can select each other.Public provision is better when a service needs to accept and take all comers e.g the NHS.
JR
July 21st, 2008 2:32pm Report this commentThe majority of companies that bid for Government business either aren't up to the job, or are incentivised to deliver poor performance through profit maximisation within contracts.
There's no easy answer. Outsourcing, as has been public policy for 20 years, brings with it inherrent problems.
Firstly to effectively manage contracts you require a large and highly skilled beaucracy to even get close to having tight control of even the simplest contracts. And getting rid of that was the point of outsourcing in the first place. To its credit the Government has tried to inject many more outsiders with specialist backgrounds into contract management roles but it simply hasn't worked.
That is linked to the problem that many contracts are now too large to manage effectively under any circumstances (even if they were private to private sector).
In this case I suspect it is a combination of those reasons as ETS got the contract in a open competition. Punishing companies by banning them from winning other Government business is a lovely idea but somewhat naive. You'd quickly run out of providers for a range of contracts if you tried this especially on the IT side.
We are stuck in a situation where being honest the choice is between imperfect delivery either by misfunctioning contracts or a bloated public sector. If anything has convinced people of this it must be the army of consultants brought in to try and make contracting work in Government who are now the focus of public ire for being, well yes you've guessed it, contracted provision to the Government that hasn't performed well.
Searcher
July 21st, 2008 2:37pm Report this commentIt’s time that it was recognised that “commercial confidentiality” is in fact just a ploy by civil sevants to conceal their own commercial incompetence. Companies bidding on contracts to be funded by taxpayers money should be required to do so on the basis that the full details of the contract will be on the public record. Given the size of the trough, it’s doubtful if many piggies will be discouraged from coming forward, but we will learn a lot about the deal-making ability of the Government.
Tankus
July 21st, 2008 3:01pm Report this commentBe also interesting to see how many civil servant's then went on to work for these companies ...?
Chuck Unsworth
July 21st, 2008 3:09pm Report this comment@ Searcher. Exactly so. 'Commercial Confidentiality' covers a whole multitude of sins. If it didn't exist they'd have to invent it....
Tom
July 21st, 2008 3:22pm Report this commentWhy can't the schools teachers be allowed to mark the exams? If that raises the problem of impartiality then allow a second marker from the neighbouring school to be a second marker. Local solution with far less bureaucracy.
Hereford
July 21st, 2008 4:08pm Report this commentWhy so surprised. The Civil Service presides over the definition of such contracts, not Government Ministers themselves.
The Civil Service is intrinsically incompetent. It is populated by highly educated, but low skilled generalists, with little or no commercial experience, undertaking activities that they are not qualified for. Until the country wakes up to the need for a real root and branch review of the UK Civil Service (its disbandment and replacement would be necessary) these cock-ups will follow one on another until the end of time.
Hereford
July 21st, 2008 4:14pm Report this commentThis all misses the point anyway.
The SAT's should be scrapped. They are designed to test teachers, not pupils.
They are a response to a view that most teachers are ineffectual coupled with an inability, or unwillingness of managers to discipline or sack teachers. Not surprising when the employment legislation under which we operate makes it almost impossible for an employer to dismiss an employee without incurring huge costs defending an Employment Tribunal.
Effective and robust management of poorly performing teachers is the answer to the problems with our education system, not the creation of new and more complex ways of measuring a system that you already know is completely ineffectual.
JR
July 22nd, 2008 1:46pm Report this commentHereford - from personal experience I can tell you that there has been huge recruitment of specialist in contracting, and indeed consultants who are specialist in contracting. That's why I've made my points above.
You can keep on believing it's a failure to get the right people to do the contracting or you can address the real problems of contracting exercises of this size, complexity etc.
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