User Profile

[malvolio]

I worked on many Government ITTs across a range of services from single offices to whole departments. Every one of them had a couple of sections containing a long list of highly specific performance targets with scaled penalties for failing to meet them. Since most were either impractical or simply...

[malvolio]

Bias is in the eyes of the beholder... What I'm trying to show is that my views are not biased by my supposed support for one particular party.

However it appears to be impossible to conduct a discussion on any matter of public life without first proclaiming which particular set of inexperienced...

[malvolio]

It's always possible. Not likely, right now, but who knows.

The first big blue spike was Howe sorting out the mess he inherited, (high unemployment and de-nationalisation mainly, and why a lot of people now think that Thatcher was a failure...) and the big drop was when it started to work,...

[malvolio]

How about you keep your own biased views to yourself, if you can't accept a valid and totally non-political discussion. And start with the state of the 1997 economy, which Blair inherited and stopped Brown and HMT from changing for years. Once Brown was set loose, that's when things started going South....

[malvolio]

You have to be able to provide an audit trail for the company cashflow for six years plus he current one. Electronic copies are fine, and have been for a long time. That implies you have to have it on a technology that can still be read in ten or more year's time, in which case paper seems to be a good...

[malvolio]

We are in the same position now as we were in the Wilson/Heath/Callaghan period - poor productivity, no real reserves, high taxation and a raft of external factors. That was sorted out by Thatcher's somewhat brutal reforms and Lawson's intelligent budgets. Blair and Brown then got us back into the same...

[malvolio]

It's more about lack of business confidence. Ever increasing overheads and punitive taxes are doing the real damage, plus our exposure to international events....

[malvolio]

Public sector client? That's a classic example of a manager spending his budget in case someone notices that he has a surplus so reduces their next year's budget!

Many year's back we found that the Navy was buying in futures in coal stocks every year because that was what they had always...

[malvolio]

I did undersrtand the regeerative braking. Didn't like it and was a bit worried about slowing firmly without brake lights. Probably could have got used to it with practice. Why should I though?

Come to that, you got the same effect in a 60's Massey Ferguson by closing the hand throttle...

[malvolio]

I have driven a Tesla. Very American feel to it, you're conscious pf the weight of the thing (especially when braking) and I hated the fact that 90% of the controls are on a touch screen.

I quite like driving EVs for their instant torque and general comfort and NVH levels. Just not convinced...

[malvolio]

Court's surname is instantly recognisable as being a major family line. Could be coincidental of course... ...

[malvolio]

Possibly true, although that level of information goes quite widely across HR's remit. But I still don't see why it is part of the application rather than as pat of the interview. It is annoyingly intrusive or irrelevant or a deterrent for some to answer, all at once.

It depends whether...

[malvolio]

God knows how Human Remains think at the best of times, but if the idea of DEI is to prevent discrimination, then asking the usual questions is totally counter-productive. If you are hiring on the basis of expertise, knowing that kind of detail is unnecessary. After all, that data is only needed if...

[malvolio]

Oh we can be sure SKB already is.. ...

[malvolio]

Yes it is. The contract is between YourCo and the agency, or your umbrella and the agency or your LLP and the agency. Unless of course, you think you are not a contactor running their own business.

My first post in this thread pointed out reasonably clearly why the OP was going nowhere....

[malvolio]

OK, so carry on with your campaign. Just be very clear what your objectives are and who your target is. It's not being defeatist to point out that you were talking about the wrong issue.

You also have to overcome the position of the DWP, which is that any business can choose which businesses...

[malvolio]

It's a plan. Two discredited nonentities will surely have the influence to move a £24bn a year industry......