Carillion collapse, Uk's second largest builder

Carillion the second largest builder in the UK has gone into administration. Loads of private and public projects have been affected.

www.bbc.co.uk...

This should hopefully re-open the debate in the UK about outsourcing important public projects and buildings to private companies.
Unfortunately this will probably be the start of a collapse as sub contractors are going to be missing out on millions, due to Carillions 120 day payment policy.

I hope none of our members are affected by this.

By the way the chief executive on 600 grand a year still getting paid til October. Last year he took home 1.51 million with all the added extras. Alright for some.

Surprised this hasn't been posted.

a reply to: Funem

This is what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket , government bears some culpability here.
Glad to hear they're investigating the board , fat cats love their cream.

a reply to: Funem

Hopefully it'll lead to something but I get the feeling it'll get brushed under the carpet. Far to many people have had there hands in the till here. I feel for the multiple workers who are gonna lose their jobs over this.

Became a proper umbrella company, didn't do much of the work them selves. Just got the contract and creamed the money off before getting someone else in to do the work.

Unfortunately it's been happening for years with all sorts of firms. Just look at the tentacles of serco or capita. Public services being drained of funds by these companies, who rarely hit their service targets or budgets.

Jobs for the boys as me dad says.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: Funem
This is what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket , government bears some culpability here.
Glad to hear they're investigating the board , fat cats love their cream.

I heard about that...

UK construction industry in crisis after government mistakenly bails out Marillion
The UK Construction Industry is in terminal decline after the government incorrectly bailed out unfashionable, neo-progressive rock act Marillion.

Owing to a simple typo, money intended for the troubled construction giant Carillion, is now lining the pockets of the former chart stars, whose records generally make Then Jericho’s output seem like the eggs that were shat from a golden goose.

Meanwhile, current construction projects held by Carillion may never be completed due to former singer Fish’s considerable lack of building site experience. However, the band’s loyal fanbase insist Fish’s recent kitchen extension, the result of a collaboration with current singer Steve Hogarth and the drummer, is the best thing they’ve done since “Kayleigh”.

Fish and co are now under pressure to meet Carillion’s existing commitments, including a state-of-the-art hospital in Liverpool, rather than banging on about some eighties’ bint who wears inappropriate footwear during a cold spell.

Carillion CEO, Simon Williams, said, “The UK requires a million new homes every single year, not some lank-haired #er reminiscing about the cherry blossom in the market square.”

And Fish, himself, admitted that while he would probably spend the money on a new recording studio, the mistake had left the country’s construction fortunes in a perilous state.

“What happens to politically sensitive building projects like schools and jails?” he remarked. “What happens to loving on the floor in Belsize Park?”

He added, “To the people of Liverpool awaiting their shiny new hospital, I just wanna say I’m sorry. “But I’m too scared to pick up the phone.” Link

My company deals with them, had an order from them sitting in my email for last couple of days

We deal with the NHS and Carrilion is involved in a few of the hospitals, I’m expecting Serco will take over many Carrilion had as I have noticed over last year a few of the hospitals ordering through Carrilion are now doing so with Serco

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

That's funny! Is that some British version of The Onion?

Any bets they blame Leaving Euro?

to me it looks like the Banks did it.
they Bail the banks out, but not Carillion.
so um the banks now own Carillion?

originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck
That's funny! Is that some British version of The Onion?

Apparently...what's funnier is that I was listening to Marillion's latest as I saw this thread. It's about wealth and society. Appropriately entitled F.E.A.R. (F*** Everyone And Run)
Did I say great band?

What really gets me on this is all the people saying that this is an example of why Labour need to get back in power - renationalise, blah, blah, blah...

Do they not remember the last time 'proper Labour' were in power?

As a previous poster said - too many eggs in one basket.

Spread the load and all will be well.

For heaven's sake, don't use this as an excuse to bring Corbyn, McDonnell and the other loonies into power. That really would be a disaster. Just look at Mason's behaviour today with LBC and Sheelagh Fogherty.

This came as big news this morning for my area. Carillon has held the contract for plowing the highways of Ontario, Canada for a few years, and most people agree they've done a piss poor job of it.
Last year the local district, (Muskoka,) decided not to renew the contract for next winter.
So how many jobs will be lost? Approximately 20,000 here in Canada I've heard.
This is why I've never applied for work with a multi-national. Mismanagement in the UK plus late payments from the middle east equals bankruptcy. Nothing the locals can do about it.

a reply to: ThickAsABrick

My mistake, it's actually 6,000 Canadian employees, not 20,000

a reply to: ThickAsABrick

Yh its 20,000 UK with another 27000 round the world.
To a certain degree things do need to be moved back to the public sector.
Why they were providing schools meals makes no sense to me. Surely the cooks/dinner ladies should be employed directly by the school and those people by produce from suppliers and cook it. No need for a middle man.
When your looking at long term maintenance and support why isn't it provided direct by local authorities or the NHS or.......
Yh large scale infrastructure projects should make use of private companies with expertise, but proper due diligence should be done.
The outcome of an investigation should be hopefully be revealing as to just how badly managed some of these contracts are.

originally posted by: Funem

Yh its 20,000 UK with another 27000 round the world.
To a certain degree things do need to be moved back to the public sector.

I dont believe the public sector is the answer with past local experience of the

public sector, it is to open to bribes etc. Anybody in position of making major

decisions should also be in the position of carrying the can when things go wrong.

Otherwise what are they getting their exorbitant salaries and bonus for?


An example: Many years ago I worked for a company When doing a sales pitch

we were allowed to give samples of the product (not at all an expensive product)

therefor we are not talking bribes.

Of the many companies I dealt with there was only ONE company where the

buyers/managers were NOT allowed to accept samples.

Why they were providing schools meals makes no sense to me. Surely the cooks/dinner ladies should be employed directly by the school and those people by produce from suppliers and cook it. No need for a middle man.
When your looking at long term maintenance and support why isn't it provided direct by local authorities or the NHS

I couldn't get my head around such diversity of a firm that builds roads schools

hospitals....... should also be involved in school dinners, to do so is going to

obviously be out sourcing which is money creamed of for all concerned agencies

involved, surely cheaper and more control of the 'product' is to deal at local

level area/council.

When The NHS gets slated for being economically out of control, I wonder why

although national why things like office supplies, rubber gloves, paper products

etc. are not supplied by local companies, with published price lists so that a

hospital in another area can change their supplier if they look up another area's

suppliers if they are cheaper. I buy boxes of rubber gloves from the pound shop

and was astonished when I read that hospitals paid more than 10 times that.

I am on a repeat perscription and when I last phoned for it I asked if I could have

the generic tablets rather than the branded ones, (my small effort to reduce

expenses) and was informed that they weren't doing that!!

Large scale infrastructure projects should make use of private companies with expertise, but proper due diligence should be done.
The outcome of an investigation should be hopefully be revealing as to just how badly managed some of these contracts are.

Agreed .... I would go further in saying a law should be brought in that if a

company goes down at that minute ALL BONUS's and SALARIES to CEO's

Managers etc should cease. There is something very wrong in a company

going down with multi job losses YET fat cats and management are still

collecting mega money.:

The Official Receiver ought to confiscate the CEOs latest salary and bonuses. Why should the bosses get paid and the rest get nothing?

How come when whenever this sort of thing happens that everyone loses out except the overpaid incompetents responsible for stuffing it all up? They're free to walk away with no losses and no consequences.

Criminality and failure rewarded yet again. Taxpayers fleeced yet again.

Everyone who is against re-nationalisation of public services don't seem to mind the nationalisation of the debts and losses and disruption these private companies leave behind, after the bosses have paid themselves their salaries and bonuses of course.

Public services should never be privatised, and this instance is an example of one reason why.

originally posted by: doobydoll

Public services should never be privatised, and this instance is an example of one reason why.

To believe that you must believe there is no corruption in government ?

There is as much corruption in government as there is any where else.

After all Carillion were being given contracts long after there were

warnings of profits and problems.


In the area I live many years ago a councilor went to prison for taking

bribes on the building of multi story flats which had to be torn down only

a few years later.


The recent fire in the multi story flats in London was due to the recent

refurbished front material not being fire retardant, the persons giving the

permission for that job, was probably on a back hander for which company

they chose!!?


I live in a small village and it is very noticable how one contractor gets all

the permission for building on land that was always considered preservation

or green belt.

The answer surprisingly isn't in state only design and construction nor is it in fascist corporatism the answer lies in a functioning free market.

There's simply too many incentives in either a communist model or a corporatist model to lie, cheat, defraud the people who pay for everything with taxes.

But this idea goes against nearly 100 years of creeping communism/socialism/fascism so people don't get it. I worked in both public and private engineering for almost 25 years, I can tell you this is all true it's a nightmare. So much fraud, graft, corruption. If you want to do a decent job honestly you'll end up with all the crap projects or be laid off first before anyone else.

The system encourages the rampant fraud, and it goes from top to bottom.

Well let me see, the head CEO is a certain Ms Mays advisor. Eerr, eerr???? They changed company policy last year to protect managements payouts.
The bast**** have stripped money out of the mens pension fund. It also comes to mind that When it's profits, it's private and when it's debt it's nationalised.
They won't investigate them because the main receivers of bribes are the ones to do the investigating.