Daily Archives: October 26, 2014

Opinion – Reforming the Professional Interim and Independent Consultant Supply Chain Model? – John Gelmini

October 26, 2014 By in Accountability, Baby Boomers, Business Administration, Central Government, Consulting, David Cameron, Defense Policy, Education, Energy Policy, Executive Interim Management, Executive interim management career, Foreign Policy, Growth, Healthcare, Independent Professional Services, Interim Management, Interim Manager, NHS, People, Politics, Public Sector, Public Services Reform, Shared Services Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

 Like Dr Alf, I look back on this period as well.

Since then, interim management rates have for the most part halved, yet the consultancy bill, via the Big 4 to Central Government, has gone up to £15.5 billion gbp and value per taxpayer pound is still at 17th in the world.

The “basket case” services, like the NHS, are not delivering, and we already see in Wales the first case of NHS meltdown. Last week, the head of NHS England, Simon Steven, tried to issue a wake-up call to the public and politicians who face a £30 billion gbp shortfall by 2020. Everybody agrees with his prognosis but the figures to close the gap (he quotes £8 billion gbp) are too big for the politicians to countenance because they would involve either cuts or finding 2 pence on income tax – this is if the £22 billion gbp in efficiencies that Simon Steven thinks can be found, do not materialize.

Local authorities are still in a deep financial mess, which is worsening; the MOD is wasting more money than ever; and the Home Office is still chaotic, not fit for purpose and has no idea how many people are in or set to live in the country.

What has happened is that as fewer interims have been involved in Central and Local Government work the amount of fraud, waste, mismanagement and duplication has increased.This is despite the more robust processes and supposedly superior consulting skills of the Big 4 and specialist consultancies like McKinseys. Specialist consultants are charged out to the Government at GBP5,000+ per day.

I seem to remember certain white-haired, very patrician, interims, acting as “devils advocates” and suggesting that they doubted whether interims would have any better effect on this situation than the Big 4 and the Systems Integration Houses /BPO providers. I also remember being told that I was “ranting” and that things were not as bad as I said they were, that everything would come right on the night, that IR35 would not be dramatically extended. They have, just as I predicted, been proved wrong in virtually every single respect as events have unfolded since 2010. These “devils advocates” have also been proved wrong not once but in every year since 2010 when Dr Alf started to highlight these problems and eventually moved to Cyprus, where he can now drink wine while the sun goes down and comment with the benefit of hindsight over situations which were bound to happen.

All of this is sad and would have been unnecessary but for a willingness to lobby and street-fight. Dr Alf, myself and a handful of hardened professionals formed a political action committee (PAC) but the industry lacked to stomach to fight their corner. The executive interim management industry had it’s golden years but they have long since passed. These days interim CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CMOs etc., are just commodities in a globalized market-place. They are contingency workers, just like contract nurses, or IT project managers.

John Gelmini

Opinion – Greatest Dangers in the World | Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project – John Gelmini

October 26, 2014 By in Defense Policy, Education, Foreign Policy, Healthcare, Immigration, Local Authorities, People, Politics, Society Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
CCTV cameras

CCTV cameras (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dr Alf talks about a “tolerant and liberal ” society with a strong foundation based on “Judeo Christian values”. This is what the UK should be but is no longer.

Tolerant societies do not spy on their people and photograph them allegedly 400 times a day (more than in Communist China); liberal societies do not try a man for the same crime twice. This ancient right under Magna Carta was abolished by one of the most illiberal Home Secretaries of all time, David Blunkett. Liberal Societies do not tap peoples’ phones, use machines like NSA’s PRISM system to read all our e-mails, texts and Skype Communications. They do not allow the police and local authorities to use RIPA to “investigate dog fouling”, intercept the contents of newspaper reporters notebooks and communications, and silence whistle-blowers.

Most recently, the actions of a man in Kent, alleged to be the UK equivalent of a “Don Corleone” were covered up by the Metropolitan Police with the help of a court order. Then, we have the case of the Hertfordshire police, putting ANPR cameras into old emptied GATSO speed camera boxes to protect and detect crime by monitoring the A505, the A10 and the old A14 out of the rural market town of Royston and tracking every single vehicle entering and leaving. These activities are those of a police state, not a liberal democracy, so we should abandon the pretense that we have one.

People are “tolerant” as long as there is enough work and enough money and they can see a future for themselves and their children. Some people can but a great many feel marginalized so they tolerate less.

With regard to religious tolerance that extends to matters of worship but not to culture or behavior. It is significant that Muslims are the only religious group which insists on demonizing people for being “unbelievers”,”apostates” and in moments of anger “infidels”. They are the only religious group demanding, often very loudly, the right to “Sharia Law” and, in extreme cases, the right to engage in “Jihad”(Holy War) against unbelievers. Muslims insist on long flowing robes, niquabs and veils and all enveloping headdress, even though the Koran is not specific on any of these points but rather calls for “modesty in dress”. Islam treats woman more like second class citizens and does not make the distinction between “church and state ” that even the Church of England makes with all its tax and legislative privileges. People look at the birthrate of Muslims versus the rest of the indigenous population and fear that, in a small crowded island, the possibility of being marginalized and overwhelmed within a generation or two.

For these reasons and recent very costly wars in Afghanistan, the Gulf and soon Syria, the UK public want our armed forces to be supported and are not enamored with the Government’s weak response to treason, sedition and home-grown radicalization. They are also unhappy about the failure of imans and Muslim religious/community leaders to control their radical elements and, like me, they worry at Muslims as being in a position to abuse Human Rights laws, with the connivance of the BBC, the Guardian, local authorities and certain politicians.

Globally the problem exists as well in Russia, China and throughout Europe.

Even in Burma, normally mild-mannered Buddhist Monks, are on the march against Muslims because of their propensity to marry younger, have bigger families and eventually outnumber the indigenous Burmese.

Greater tolerance will exist, once Muslims learn to worship more quietly, go about their business in Western dress and adapt to their surroundings, whilst accepting the rule of law, in whatever country they happen to live in. This is what everyone else manages to do.

John Gelmini