Security and Cowboy Builders

Imagine that you're getting a builder in to put up an extension, or maybe a conservatory. You'd almost certainly get quotations from at least 2 or 3 different firms, and compare not just the price, but also the scope of supply for the job, i.e. what's included in the price. You might confirm some details, such as if the contractor is responsible for disposing of waste, or skip hire etc. You would probably check the builder's references, even possibly going to speak to past clients, to get an idea of the quality and reliability of the builder and his team.

When all this information is in, you make an informed choice about which builder to choose. It's probably a balance between price, quality and reliability. In terms of time, and also financially, it's usually wise to have some contingency in place.

World English Dictionary
contingency  (kənˈtɪndʒənsɪ) 

— n  , pl  -cies 
1.  a. a possible but not very likely future event or condition; eventuality 
 b. ( as modifier ): a contingency plan  
2.  something dependent on a possible future event 
3.  a fact, event, etc, incidental to or dependent on something else 
4.  in systemic grammar  
 a. Compare adding modification of the meaning of a main clause by use of a bound clause introduced by a binder such as if, when, though,  or since 
 b. ( as modifier ): a contingency clause  
5.  logic  
 a. the state of being contingent 
 b. a contingent statement 
6.  dependence on chance; uncertainty 
7.  statistics  
 a. the degree of association between theoretical and observed common frequencies of two graded or classified variables. It is measured by the chi-square test 
 b. ( as modifier ): a contingency table ; the contingency coefficient 

In the context that we've been discussing, a reasonable contingency plan might include things such as discovering that footings need to be deeper than anticipated, or perhaps an uncharted drain. Timings might, depending upon the circumstances, be changed by the weather or perhaps sickness. The broad picture from the definitions above is that the events considered in a contingency are possible, but perhaps not likely or maybe even incidental to the matter at hand.

I doubt that anyone has ever undertaken a building project with a particular supplier and included as a contingency that the work will be done so badly, that you end up having to pay someone else to do it again, (or even do it yourself) or that the builder will fail to turn up. If you even suspected that either of these situations might occur, only the most arrogant or stupid of people would continue with that contractor.

Yet, if the Government (specifically, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt) is to be believed, this is exactly what has happened. All week, Hunt has been playing down the utter and total failure of G4S to provide the required number of security guards, saying that it's completely normal for a contractor to fail to deliver, and that contingency plans were in place for this.

Hunt continues to maintain that the Government had been monitoring G4S closely during the run-up to the Games. Again, IF this is true, then it is inescapable that the monitoring was not close enough.

Hunt and Theresa May find themselves in an inextricable mess entirely of their own making. The process has been mismanaged to the extent that nothing that they save, true or otherwise, can - or should - save their jobs. Both must go after the Olympics are over.

Mr Herbert, you doth protest too much

I've recently discovered the online edition of Hansard, which shows the daily communications within the Commons and the Lords. It's recorded verbatim, which is really interesting. You get to see the whole conversation, not just the soundbites broadcast on the TV or radio news.

It's interesting because you don't have to rely on the recollections of others on who said what and to whom. To the less than transparent, however, this little fact can come back to bit you. Hard.

One such exchange caught my eye. It can be viewed here, at Column 738. I'll include the relevent section in full:

2. George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con): Whether she has considered bringing forward amendments to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill to ensure that proposed police panels are representative of the geographical area they will serve. [70926]
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert): The Government have set out plans to ensure that police and crime panels are representative of the places they serve. We tabled an amendment to the Bill in another place, allowing many panels to co-opt further members. This will enable local authorities to address geographical imbalances.
George Eustice: I thank the Minister for that response and welcome the amendment, which is obviously a step in the right direction. However, he will be aware of the particular concerns of people in Cornwall that they might not get a fair geographic representation. What additional reassurance can he give that the Home Secretary will ensure that Cornwall is fairly represented on Devon and Cornwall police panel, and will he agree to meet a delegation from Cornwall council to discuss this issue?
Nick Herbert: I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns—they have been put to me by other hon. Friends. The amendment that we moved in the other place will allow for the nomination of an additional five members to the panel. Approval for that will lie with the Secretary of State, although there must be regard to geographical balance. I hope and believe therefore that we can reassure the people of Cornwall that they will be properly represented on these panels.
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): The Minister will agree on what lies at the heart and success of British policing—it should be by consent, local and rooted in the community. That is why I welcome what he has just said. Will he also agree, however, that it is vital that our senior police officers have spent a year or two on the beat in the local community? Will he hit on the head these ludicrous press reports that the Government are thinking of bringing in an elite group of officers—super-duper graduates, Bullingdon club boys—to be slotted in straight away to run our police services? Policing should be local, and every chief constable should have served on the beat.
Nick Herbert: That is a travesty of the Government’s position. We have asked Tom Winsor to consider these matters. The right hon. Gentleman should pay more attention to the views of the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall, which he expressed in an article in The Times today, co-written by me. He points out that the police have not made sufficient progress on diversity and that one way to address that might be to consider additional points of entry. We also point out that operational experience would be necessary.

Well well well. I've highlighted the bit I found most interesting. Mr Herbert, I think you doth protest too much.

It doesn't take much intellect to see how this Government handles objection to it's more outlandish ideas.

1. Initiallty it discredits media reports, saying that these things are being examined in an 'independent' report.
2. The report 'miraculously' recommends these exact measures, but the Government says that the outcomes of the report are in 'negotiation'.
3. Finally, the proposal becomes established fact.

It's true that the direct entry scheme proposed by Winsor is in negotiation, but we all know that police officers have no rights of real, meaningful negotiation.

I wonder, when Direct Entry becomes a fact, will someone challenge Herbert in the Commons to say that the Government has implemented something which the Minister said was a "travesty of the Government's position"? In fact, if you look closely at what was said, you'll notice that Herbert says it's a travesty, but then says "we've asked Tom Winsor to consider these matters". I wonder what else he was asked to "consider"? So much for "independent" eh, Mr Herbert?

I shall continue to look back over the Hansard records. It will be fascinating to see what other nuggets the record throws up.

Calamity May should resign

The G4S Olympics fiasco has hopefully put paid to the theory that private companies are sleek, dynamic and frugal compared to bloated, wasteful and inefficient public services.

G4S has been under close scrutiny from the Home Office. Leaked documents show that even in April, Government officials had grave doubts that G4S would be able to recruit sufficient numbers of competent staff. Against this background, it is hard to take seriously the claims of the Home Secretary that all was thought to be well until Wednesday. The Defence Secretary said today that the ‘notice to move’ given to troops was shortened at the weekend, meaning that the actual decision was taken prior to that.

Mrs May is either incompetent, or has mislead Parliament with repeated assurances that all was on plan, when her department knew that the reality was nothing of the kind. If she didn’t know, she should have done. This follows her infamous Human Rights Act cat story, the Abu Hamza farce, and she has also become the second Home Secretary in history to be convicted of Contempt of Court. In the last few weeks she has also appointed a new Chief of HMIC as a deliberate affront to the Police Federation. She has lost the confidence of the police & public alike, and should if she had any honour she would resign. She has been, head & shoulders, the most calamitous Home Secretary in living memory. She even has her own hashtag on Twitter - #NoConfidenceInTheresaMay.

It’s particularly galling for the armed forces, when in the last two weeks thousands have been told that they will be made redundant. Within a short period of time, they’re told they’re not wanted, now they’re mopping up after G4S. Had the security operation been kept within the public sector, the primary objective would have been getting the personnel trained and in place in time. The primary objective of G4S is profit. Policing functions should never be outsourced, especially never to G4S who have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted. They have already been caught falsifying reports in order not to incur contractual penalties.

Public service is about exactly that – service. Private companies exist to make profit for their shareholders, and any service that they provide is incidental.

Banking: What Lies Beneath?

Today has really been a staggering day in the development of the Barclays scandal over LIBOR rate fixing. In the last two days, Chairman Marcus Agious, Chief Executive Bob Diamond and Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier have all resigned.

There have been calls for an inquiry, and the Government proposed an inquiry by the Treasury Select Committee, overseen by its Chairman, Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie. This has been rejected by Labour, who want to see a more impartial, judge-led inquiry similar to the Leveson inquiry. Such an inquiry would undoubtedly not reflect well upon Labour, and it's a credit to Ed Miliband that this is his preferred form of inquiry.

There's no doubt that the irregularities happened whilst Labour was in power, but it remains a point of discussion as to whether they occurred because of the "lack of regulation" by Labour. The Tories say so, although it would appear that at the time, they were actually campaigning for less regulation. Both Cameron and Osborne have said that they "would like nothing more than seeing Ed Balls in the dock". Ed Balls was the City Minister at the time.

So, with the gun seemingly aimed squarely at Labour, why on earth would the Government shy away from a judge-led inquiry which would undoubtedly be embarrassing (if not actually incriminating) for Labour? Could it possibly be that although there may be a gun aimed at Labour, there is a whole battery of cannons aimed at the Tories?

This is a Coalition Government that has spent the last two years blaming everything that they can think of on the previous Labour Government. Why on earth would they want to miss an opportunity for an independent inquiry to land all the blame for this at Labour's door?

Could it be that the Tories know what lies beneath?

More spin than my washing machine

Today saw the release of a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, "Policing in Austerity: One Year On". You can read the full report here. The broad aim of the report was to measure the impact of austerity on the quality of service being delivered across the country.

In my last blog entry, I talked about how politicians use (or abuse) language to hide a multitude of sins. I spoke of how you often have to read in the gaps between the words, to see what is contained in the white space. I gave some typical examples of doublespeak used by politicians of all parties.

One example last week was when Nick Herbert MP (Policing Minister) was giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee regarding the appointment of Tom Winsor to the post of Chief Inspector of Constabulary. Mr Herbert referred to the police service as a "monopoly public service". This is quite a strange expression. I don't recall hearing it before in any other context. What was even more perplexing is that Mr Winsor used exactly the same phrase later when questioned by the Committee. It's an unusual phrase, used twice in the same afternoon. At this point, I'm tempted to question Winsor's much trumpeted "independence", but I won't. I'll leave that to you.

Even having written that blog, a week or so ago, I was wholly unprepared for the degree of absolutely blatant and barefaced spin and rubbish to emanate from the Twitter accounts of Nick Herbert and also even the official Twitter feed of the Home Office. Mr Herbert posted a series of messages emphasising the positive side of the HMIC report. He even went so far as to say that Labour's claims of risks to public safety and quality of service had been "demolished". Here's a summary of the report which Mr Herbert tweeted.

In interviews today, (especially with Cathy Newman on Channel 4 News) Mr Herbert was very keen on endlessly regurgitating the 'finding' that the "front line is being protected". What he conveniently neglected to say was the second half of the sentence. You can see it for yourself above. It's a particularly odd and contradictory expression, and without asking the Chief of HMIC what exactly it means, it would be hard to be certain. However, reading in the spaces, as I mentioned earlier, I've come to this conclusion, which I'll give to you as an analogy. Imagine that your house was on fire, and you were frantically trying to fight the blaze with a hose pipe. You might be making progress against that fire, you might not be. In this situation, even if the fire was "under control", it would still be burning and consuming the contents and structure of your house. In these circumstances, I think it might be fair to say that you were protecting your house, but you were not preserving it.

Thw website dictionary.com has this definition of the term "preserve":

pre·serve

   /prɪˈzɜrv/ Show Spelled [pri-zurv] Show IPA verb, pre·served, pre·serv·ing, noun

verb (used with object)

1.  to keep alive or in existence; make lasting: to preserve our liberties as free citizens.

2.  to keep safe from harm or injury; protect or spare.

3.  to keep up; maintain: to preserve historical monuments.

4.  to keep possession of; retain: to preserve one's composure.

5.  to prepare (food or any perishable substance) so as to resist decomposition or fermentation.

Using the example I've given, and the definitions above, I think we can see what HMIC really meant. Others might disagree, but my best guess of what the phrase "the frontline is being protected although not preserved" is that the 43 police forces are fighting like mad to juggle their now meagre resources, in an attempt to maintain services. However, despite their best efforts, the fire is being - at best - kept at bay whilst consuming the service relentlessly.

Mr Herbert has set much store by trotting out the line about the proportion of frontline officers increasing. This may or may not be true, depending on your classification of the term "frontline". However, what it masks - deliberately in my opinion - is the overall reduction of officers. Mr Herbert crows loudly about the proportion of frontline officers increasing from 67% to 74%. However, when tackled about the fact that a larger proportion of a smaller number means that there are fewer officers, Mr Herbert complains that the quality of service isn't measured in numbers. If this is so, why go on about the proportions? This is just a cynical attempt to show the opposite of what is really happening.

"Service to the public has been largely maintained"

Again, Mr Herbert has been talking up the maintenance of the service to the public. Let me ask you - if the roof on your house "largely kept the water out" or if your car "largely operated reliably" - would you think this is acceptable? Probably not, and yet these are fairly trivial examples. Is it acceptable that the public service is only "largely" being maintained?

The sentence highlighted above had a "but" in the HMIC report, followed by

"There are some concerns around sustainability"

This sentence actually speaks for itself. Funnily enough, I didn't hear Mr Herbert mention this one. I wonder why?