PPP Management

Headline "G4S and Serco could pay government £4 million over failures in asylum seeker housing contracts" http://www.supplymanagement.com/news/2014/g4s-and-serco-could-pay-government-ps4-million-over-failures-in-asylum-seeker-housing This appears to be another negative story about G4S and Serco.  However read on..... "negotiations are taking place that could see up to £4 million being paid to the Home Office as a rebate for failure to hit KPI targets" Let's congratulate the Home Office for two things: 1. Setting ambitious targets and making the contractors work for them. 2.  Writing contracts that are sufficient rigour that penalty clauses are effective and that contractors are being held to account. Will the PAC applaud the work of the Home Office? Time will tell. It should not be forgotten that the subject of housing for asylum seekers is a very emotive subject and any contractor that takes on this challenge should be encouraged.  There has bee...

We've covered this story for the last couple of months and have always said that there were problems in the contract management of the G4S and Serco Ministry of Justice (MoJ) contracts.  The report makes for sorry reading, page 13 is the Executive Summary ( https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/267693/contract-management-review.pdf  ) There are three crucial questions following on from this report and its publications are: What will the government do to resolve the skills shortfalls? Will Serco and G4S be welcomed back in to the government? Despite some contracts being reviewed further, the government exclusion of G4S and Serco from competing for government contracts at present has the door been left open to compensation claims should no fault be found? The following government report heaps yet more worries on the government, 28 contracts reviewed and any shortcomings are not the contractors.  To quote from the report "th...

The very topical issue of supplier performance is perhaps embodied by the current electronic tagging problems that have continued to gain prominence in the press this week. The Telegraph article offers a factual account of the recent admission and mentions contractual interpretation. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/supportservices/10459367/G4S-offers-to-hand-back-24.1m-after-wrongly-billing-for-tagging-contracts.html In this article it is shown that the Supplier, G4S, conducted an independent review on its activities; so it’s not as though they were looking to sweep the issue under the carpet. The following BBC article raises some extremely poignant questions about the capability of the Buyer – The Ministry of Justice and comes very quickly on the back of NAO report criticising government departments on their inability to set robust contracts that they understand. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25001800 When selecting the Supplier the Buyer will cert...