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Post by bracknellboy on May 4, 2024 7:17:36 GMT
As much as I (currently) think that Singh deserves all the opprobrium he's receiving I can't help but think that he is as much a symptom as a cause. How could anybody as obviously useless as he is have achieved the position he reached? How could any of the people who so manifestly can't take responsibility for anything have achieved positions of responsibility? And, before I become (too) "holier than thou", I've worked for organisations where, had they been subject to the level of scrutiny that the PO is currently receiving, they would have been very, very uncomfortable. The staff too, and that could have included me. Watching the Horizon inquiry unfold makes me reflect on all the conversations and email chains and... just busy corporate life I experienced. I was never involved in anything close to what is currently unfolding before us. But I did experience a few things that made me distinctly uncomfortable. Did I resolve them appropriately? I think so. Were they to be subject to this level of scrutiny would I still think so? I'm not so sure. I sometimes wonder that large organisations are simply impossible to manage to the standards that we (the public), shareholders, customers, staff, and the management expect of them.What to do? Any organisation larger than a decent size 'team' by necessity has to rely on the integrity of individuals. Yes you have to have the right structures in place. Yes you have to have the right practises and procedures in place. Yes you have to have the right governance structures in place to best ensure compliance with practises and procedures. Yes you have to have the right corporate ethos starting from the top and propagated down, especially to the people in key oversight positions. But ultimately that will breakdown at the individual level if an individual doesn't inherently live by the ethics and sense of integrity and decency. And when an organisation is under pressure, it will breakdown in several places. It also applies the other way round: in order to execute a policy of genocide or terror, you have to have individuals that intrinsically are OK with that. The holocaust required people to treat others as 'not human', or to be sociopathic so that the concept had no meaning to them. We are almost certainly currently seeing it in Gaza and West Bank: even if the IDF still lived by the proclaimed ethos of being a modern force abiding by all international requirements and norms, it is inevitably going to fail at the individual level: and that individual can be someway up the command chain. We see it also in Ukraine: Russian forces make no real meaningful pretence of operating in accordance with international norms and requirements, and that comes from the top. But it still requires individuals to torture, rape and massacre. Back to POL. I can't quite make up my mind about Singh. However I do not think he genuinely believes some of the things he has been saying. To do so requires logic to be bent to breaking point. I think he is trying so hard to maintain a line, and probably genuinely 'scared' of what is going on and will happen, that it is shining through. I doubt he was the kingpin of any policy, but I'm sure he was an important player in carrying it out. His apparent indifference, at the time, to what were clear conditions for miscarriages of justice and the destruction of lives does not put him in a favourable light. And he seems to have been an active player in perpetuating that, as well as a significant passive player in failing to take actions to raise alarms. My corporate life was in a very different field, but one that arguably was open to bending ethics and morals on a more regular basis. I like to think that I not only kept my sense of integrity/decency and ethics through that, but that I pretty much embedded that in my business life and affected the behaviour of others at times. Even at the price of personal financial cost. back to POL. Whatever his role, I think its pretty clear that with regard to Horizon, his failure to do the right thing and not do the wrong things wasn't exactly acting against the corporate and management preference and culture. He was a cog in the machine, but how big a cog I'm not sure.
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registerme
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Post by registerme on May 7, 2024 20:35:06 GMT
So this is a dumb / naive question. Maybe Mousey would like to opine? We have "council for the inquiry", or whatever they are actually called. Mr Bear etc. And very effective they are too. We also have barristers / lawyers (?) for other interested parties, eg the sub-Post Masters, or Mr Jenkins etc. When preparing for a witness, do those barristers / lawyers work together? Are they allowed to? Or would that be considered inappropriate (?) collusion (?). I realise that this is an inquiry and not a case heard before a court but I am unsure about the mechanices wrt to this, or their import. |
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keitha
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Post by keitha on May 7, 2024 22:43:36 GMT
As much as I (currently) think that Singh deserves all the opprobrium he's receiving I can't help but think that he is as much a symptom as a cause. How could anybody as obviously useless as he is have achieved the position he reached? How could any of the people who so manifestly can't take responsibility for anything have achieved positions of responsibility? And, before I become (too) "holier than thou", I've worked for organisations where, had they been subject to the level of scrutiny that the PO is currently receiving, they would have been very, very uncomfortable. The staff too, and that could have included me. Watching the Horizon inquiry unfold makes me reflect on all the conversations and email chains and... just busy corporate life I experienced. I was never involved in anything close to what is currently unfolding before us. But I did experience a few things that made me distinctly uncomfortable. Did I resolve them appropriately? I think so. Were they to be subject to this level of scrutiny would I still think so? I'm not so sure. I sometimes wonder that large organisations are simply impossible to manage to the standards that we (the public), shareholders, customers, staff, and the management expect of them. What to do? Depends on what you call Ethical. one company I worked for employed a new member of staff, after a few weeks it became apparent that she was only happy if she could get our price down by 10%, my management twigged and all PM's were told to inflate quotes by 15% for that one department. was that ethical. I can also remember a customer asking for a change made at their request to be reversed, the easy way was to note in the change log that the customer requested to revert to the previous version and to delete the new source code and the compiled program. cost a couple of hours at the time £100 or so. Instead the powers that be insisted I reverse the changes at the same coast as making them literally All I did was edit -1 to new changing the version number, recompile the code, and rerun the test scripts as I remember we charged the around £3,000
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spiral
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Post by spiral on May 8, 2024 6:52:59 GMT
All I did was edit -1 to new changing the version number, recompile the code, and rerun the test scripts as I remember we charged the around £3,000 I remember us getting a control system installed. It was priced up but before being built we needed to make some changes. Additional costs were incurred per change made including costs for deleting code that had not yet been coded. To reduce costs, we didn't delete code that wasn't necessary so ended up with code that was opening valves which were already open and closing valves that were already closed. 
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Post by bracknellboy on May 8, 2024 7:42:06 GMT
As much as I (currently) think that Singh deserves all the opprobrium he's receiving I can't help but think that he is as much a symptom as a cause. How could anybody as obviously useless as he is have achieved the position he reached? How could any of the people who so manifestly can't take responsibility for anything have achieved positions of responsibility? And, before I become (too) "holier than thou", I've worked for organisations where, had they been subject to the level of scrutiny that the PO is currently receiving, they would have been very, very uncomfortable. The staff too, and that could have included me. Watching the Horizon inquiry unfold makes me reflect on all the conversations and email chains and... just busy corporate life I experienced. I was never involved in anything close to what is currently unfolding before us. But I did experience a few things that made me distinctly uncomfortable. Did I resolve them appropriately? I think so. Were they to be subject to this level of scrutiny would I still think so? I'm not so sure. I sometimes wonder that large organisations are simply impossible to manage to the standards that we (the public), shareholders, customers, staff, and the management expect of them. What to do? .... Yes - though it would depend on the context, what discussions were had before and how it was presented. Allowing for a "buyers" approach to the procurement process is entirely ethical and sensible. If it was an 'open' procurement (I suspect this was different), then you would not go in with your BAFO at the outset anyway. Unless you are an idiot and like to end up with work that is bad for your business. Knowing how your customer behaves is an important part of the selling process (and vice versa). You need to allow for the psychology and tactics of the procurement process. If a 'buyers' sole yardstick of value was how much they could reduce a suppliers quote by, then they are doing a poor job for their employer. Ultimately you may also have saved them money and hassle by avoiding lengthy and unprofitable to and fro'ing on the cost only to end up at somewhere which still didn't satisfy her demand. Or led you to cut corners in order to meet an artificially low price point (see Horizon). They are always at liberty to ultimately reopen competition to alternate suppliers, in the longer term. In the situation you describe, and what you've said before, you were probably in a long term supply contract, possibly with fixed rates/rate card for manpower etc. With individual pieces of work quoted for on as needed basis. To operate that effectively requires trust both ways. If a customer POC then insists on constantly reducing the quoted prices, that is going to lead to significant difficulties. Including risking poor work due to corners being cut. If they were pushing for reduced rates on a rate card, you were overtly agreeing to that but then billing for more hours to compensate, then that would be unethical. Actually, it would be fraud. No. Absolutely not. The supplier should also be acting as a "friend of the customer" and should be advising them of the most sensible course of action. In this case the lowest cost. In this case, it isn't even the lowest risk as there was always the potential for not properly undoing the changes, a risk removed by doing a roll back. Still, the customer is also an idiot for not challenging it.
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on May 8, 2024 8:26:52 GMT
So this is a dumb / naive question. Maybe Mousey would like to opine? We have "council for the inquiry", or whatever they are actually called. Mr Bear etc. And very effective they are too. We also have barristers / lawyers (?) for other interested parties, eg the sub-Post Masters, or Mr Jenkins etc. When preparing for a witness, do those barristers / lawyers work together? Are they allowed to? Or would that be considered inappropriate (?) collusion (?). I realise that this is an inquiry and not a case heard before a court but I am unsure about the mechanices wrt to this, or their import. There's a useful guide here - www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/a-guide-to-public-inquiries which does explain the role of counsel to the inquiry. Jason Beer KC also wrote the book on public inquiries but it's a tad expensive coming in at £257! I simply don't know enough about the process to answer your other questions. I suspect there's a spirit of co-operation between the barristers to ensure time is used wisely.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on May 8, 2024 9:34:00 GMT
It would be a waste of time ( and money ) for all for counsel(s) to ask the same question.
"i refer you to your answer of " blah Blah" to my learned friend, would you agree that is also the case with the proceedings against x, y, and z"
from what I've seen the KC's for the enquiry are leaving openings for colleagues
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registerme
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Post by registerme on May 9, 2024 21:06:08 GMT
I've quite enjoyed watching proceedings for yesterday and today (for reference 08 and 09 May 2024). Barristers going at barristers makes for a high class game.
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Post by bracknellboy on May 10, 2024 17:32:18 GMT
I've quite enjoyed watching proceedings for yesterday and today (for reference 08 and 09 May 2024). Barristers going at barristers makes for a high class game. cetainly it is on a whole different level than having the likes of Janail - I was only carrying out orders - Singh being questioned.
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ozboy
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Post by ozboy on May 16, 2024 21:47:59 GMT
I wonder if The Post Office was taking Operational Guidance from the FCA?
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ozboy
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Post by ozboy on May 16, 2024 21:55:03 GMT
So this is a dumb / naive question. Maybe Mousey would like to opine? We have "council for the inquiry", or whatever they are actually called. Mr Bear etc. And very effective they are too. We also have barristers / lawyers (?) for other interested parties, eg the sub-Post Masters, or Mr Jenkins etc. When preparing for a witness, do those barristers / lawyers work together? Are they allowed to? Or would that be considered inappropriate (?) collusion (?). I realise that this is an inquiry and not a case heard before a court but I am unsure about the mechanices wrt to this, or their import. There's a useful guide here - www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/a-guide-to-public-inquiries which does explain the role of counsel to the inquiry. Jason Beer KC also wrote the book on public inquiries but it's a tad expensive coming in at £257! I simply don't know enough about the process to answer your other questions. I suspect there's a spirit of co-operation between the barristers to ensure time is used wisely.Oh Rodent One, many would say there is definitely " a spirit of co-operation between barristers", and just as many would say that it encompasses much more than just "time." 😉
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james100
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Post by james100 on May 19, 2024 18:55:27 GMT
Paula Vennells in the hot seat Wednesday - Friday, should be interesting.
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Post by crabbyoldgit on May 19, 2024 20:12:49 GMT
Ok sorry I am going on near 70 my experience of dealing with authority has been absolutey that the only interest they have there own self interest.
1 An ex next door neighbour raised a nuisance complaint of the use of our log burner with environmental health. After a 14 month investigation close to court case we proved the complainant was not honest and our witness was just for fun the environmental officer running the case. Even then they were progressing a court case until we played back to them the officers own comments to us in our own front room which she until the play of recording denied .
We had put a recorder under the sofa and forgot to mention it, never mind .Only when we told them and they understood the cold hard fact we were going all the way in court did they find in our favour . The simple fact was they had no interest in the facts of the case only in closing it at the minimum possible cost .Our neighbour was on their backs all the time ,expensive , difficult, best throw us under the bus and move on.
2 Ok I made a mistake , I was guilty , I discharged about a cup of diesel into the harbour it's a criminal offense and until I presented the video recordings of the discharge of sewerage from the pontoon toilets on three separate occasions because the pump out of the storage was not frequent enough on busy summer weekends and the over flow alarm was not working and known not to work , I had reported it and kept the emails,for at least 3 years. Suddenly there was no problem , to minor a discharge of diesel to deal with, would you Adam and Eve it.
My advice right or wrong is if you get any problems with authority is stand your ground , play the game, make it difficult, expensive and time consuming. It is brutal, but they do not give a **** about right or wrong , it's simple box ticking exercise and the easy cheap self serving way will always come first.
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on May 20, 2024 9:02:34 GMT
Paula Vennells in the hot seat Wednesday - Friday, should be interesting. I wonder what she might say
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keitha
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Post by keitha on May 20, 2024 9:05:58 GMT
I guess she will say that everyone else is lying, it wasn't her, and even if it was it's not her fault/responsibility.
I wouldn't be shocked if she refuses to answer questions, or a "sick note" is produced.
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