The good news is that, ever mindful of the costs of her special projects, Nanny has been keeping costs as low as possible in regard to her planned ID card scheme.The costs incurred to date have so far amounted to a mere £17M, according to information gleaned under the Freedom of Information Act.
Out of this, "drop in the ocean", £12M was paid directly to PA Consulting.
Astute observers will note that the ID cards bill has not yet reached a third reading in the House of Commons.
Who cares!
Nanny doesn't!
PA estimated the development and procurement phases of the project would cost £18.74m over the length of the two-year deal.
The figures also disclosed that at least 62 consultants are working alongside 43 civil servants and one secondee.
In the FOI statement the Home Office said:
"The PA Consulting contract involves work on the design, feasibility testing, business case and procurement elements of the id cards programme.
The nature of the contract for this service is such that an outturn value is not defined; packages of work are agreed monthly. The Home Office has made no commitment to any contract value.
Although the total value of the contract will not be known until the contract is concluded..
I can tell you that the estimated prices given in the successful tender by the contractor were £9.87m for the development phase of the programme and £8.87m for the subsequent procurement phase."
Roughly translated, that means "we don't know how much it will cost, because it is not our money and we don't care".
The Home Office said the "average daily cost for each consultant working on the programme was £1,093".
Remember folks, it's your money that Nanny is spending.
In case anyone from the home office is reading; I'm intelligent, computer and IT literate and available for slightly less than £1000 a day.
ReplyDeleteI work for an engineering consultancy and know how tightly most contracts for feasability studies etc. are worded to precisely define what is required and to limit the total cost (which is agreed in advance).
ReplyDeleteI'd be salivating at the thought of a Government Minister coming into the office and saying "Sort of make it nice and as we haven't made up our minds what we want, produce something and if it doesn't fit the bill, we'll issue instructions (and further fees) until what you produce seems acceptable".
In other words, if they don't know what they want, can't produce a written brief which specifies what is required, can't determine if what is produced satisfies the original brief, don't have an approximate idea of what the costs of such research are, then you can't blame the people concerned making hay while the sun shines.
Ooooooooooooooh!! I'm in the wrong line of business ...