Any government procurement contract that doesn't have late delivery penalties and anti-overrun indemnities shouldn't be allowed
The NHS computer system that's been announced as buggered today? Well, that's just the latest- it's happened before, like with the Social Services successor to Caseload Management or the Inland Revenue and Capita, or the National Identity Card. If it is costed as 50 pence and somehow ends up costing £500 million then someone has fucked up royally and I don't see why we should pay for for something that can't even be used properly at the end.

Mind you, defence procurement is quite shady like that- spend hundreds of millions on buying Apache Longbow helicopters, insist on fitting Rolls Royce engines that don't fit and arm them with Hellfire missles that couldn't be fired without damaging the tail rotor- more hundreds of millions to fix. The Bowman army radio system that gave people who wear the portable transmitters RF burns. The Eurofighter £90 million Mauser cannon that was ditched as irrelevant so used with a concrete dummy, but the cost of reengineering the airframe would have cost another £32 million so the original cannons were put back but with no ammunition.

If it's a fuckup, don't let them keep on issuing invoices and expect them to be paid.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Thu 22 Sep 2011, 19:43, 4 replies)

BOWMAN
Better Off With Map And Nokia

I could build a replacement for BOWMAN with the shite that's lying under my bench at work. It would be better, it would work, it wouldn't fall to bits and I'd only charge a couple of thousand per unit - cheap at 1/10th the cost!
(gordonjcp, Thu 22 Sep 2011, 21:01, closed)

When
it's cheaper to build an aircraft carrier than not build it, something's wrong.
(MrHammerHands last checked the time on, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 0:28, closed)

Too many
People making money off back handers from government contracts
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 10:09, closed)

Absolutely right
Get the quote for the job, have one civil servant in charge who's salary (not bonus) is tied to keeping the job on time. The company doing the job has to keep to the agreed budget - no overspends, and penalties for over-time. If the project ends up getting dumped for whatever reason, the civil servant and the CEO of the company go to jail and can't come out until the project would have been completed.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 12:48, closed)