- Trams Downunder

Re: The 200 consulting firms working on Auckland Light Rail
Robert Taaffe

Tony P - that is a lot of rubbish and a smear on dedicated and talented people who try to run an efficient operation. It is the politicians and so called overseas experts who have not got a clue and stuff the system. Bob T

Sent from my iPhone
On 29 Sep 2023, at 9:29 am, Tony Galloway arg@...> wrote:

Nah. That fascist clown you quoted is just a passive, impaled, boss buggered body cavity.
Anti-union, anti-worker, anti-social. A shill for the problem not an advocate for a solution.

A faecal smear evacuated from the sociopathic ideological rectum of Margaret Thatcher.
Nothing else.

Tony

On 28 Sep 2023, at 14:45, TP historyworks@...> wrote:
A comment I read recently on another discussion about the whole current scene that might provide some insight into why, including the subject of government running operations instead of contractors.
[quote]
Governments have great difficulty running profitable businesses.
Politicians respond to the loudest voices. As a result they tend to
hold prices down and run businesses as an arm of welfare, overmanning
them badly. Unions dominate weak politicians. Few public servants have
a background in running businesses. Their thinking tends to be rule
dominated, reflecting their public service training. No rewards for
initiative, great fear of doing something different and it going wrong [risk].
It is harder for government-owned businesses to recruit outside talent
at market rates. Governments tend to underinvest in their businesses,
having other calls on taxpayer funds that will earn them more votes. [unquote]
Put simply, governments nowadays have trouble attracting the relevant talent (and it's not just the issue of money but also the incredibly frustrating working environment), so they're obliged to contract out. The trick then is to hire the right talent, but then you have to have somebody who can recognise what the right talent is and you then have to hire that person or people and how do you know you have the right person? - a sort of Catch 22. Then on top of that, you have the contract process itself which has to be set up very carefully to get the outcome you want, or else anybody will get the job if they attain the optimum score, which may not necessarily include the right competency.
Generally it goes OK, but modern light rail that fails to take into account the experience and expertise of legacy systems doesn't always fare so well.
Tony P

On Thursday, 28 September 2023 at 13:45:28 UTC+10bblun...@... wrote:

"Parker said organisations responsible for delivering large-scale
projects like Auckland Light Rail and did not employ large teams of
experts necessary to develop projects, and relied on companies in the
infrastructure/construction industry to provide those skills."
And those organisations have have no expertise in assessing whether the advice is in the their best interest, or for the consultants.
Brian

On Thursday, 28 September 2023 at 12:43:05 pm AEST, Tony Galloway a...@...> wrote:

Obviously, all public transport projects in the English speaking world need a dose of this :