lmsforever Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 It was in this weeks Private Eye and has a great deal of detail surprising given its a satirical mag a regular feature covering many subjects. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckymucklebackit Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 Noticed this was featured on the news this morning - even the dead move for HS2! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45971226 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Storey Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 It was in this weeks Private Eye and has a great deal of detail surprising given its a satirical mag a regular feature covering many subjects. Bashing KPMG and the others has been a favourite pastime for PE, and not without good reason in many cases. But they don't just provide "accountancy" services or such-like, and HS2 Ltd would have to utilise HMG approved contractors, without serious justification. As previously explained, there are so few companies these days that can bid for and deliver such enormous work, that the accusations don't really make sense, unless alternatives are cited. Where there is significant justification in PE articles is in the lack of scrutiny by NAO or others in the contracts being let, as to whether they are VFM or uncompetitively procured. But in a seriously constrained supply market, that is mute, and is most definitely not an issue unique to HS2. Straw grasping is a great hobby, but don't expect it to go unchallenged. Simply saying something, as part of your democratic right, does not simply make it true (as PE have found out many times in court, M'Lud). 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoingUnderground Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 (edited) I have found some figures on monies paid out to the four largest accountancy companie in the UK who in turn got contracts for their customers this can not be right.The total paid out was £19.5 million.The station contracts £221 million was paid out to a customer one of the big four One company was paid £4.7 m for consultative work and they are still coining cash and placing their customer in contracts no matter what anyone says in reply to this post the situation is not good and to think we taxpayers are paying for this. Your choice of wording "... who in turn got contracts for their customers..." implies as a minimum a lack of objectivity if not a degree of underhandedness, or at worst possibly even corruption. The aggregation of accountancy firms over the last 40 years was the result of the increase in the size of their audit clients, and the need for the parent company auditor to be reasonably sure that the audits of all parts of a multinational company had been done to their standards, as well as take the financial risk of auditing these giant multinationals. when things go wrong, everyone blames the auditors (who may have to pick up the tab), whilst the directors who caused the problems walk away with big fat severance payouts. The only way to do that was for the firms to grow and form internationally based practices, often by combining with a UK rival and a US firm so they could undertake all parts of the audit of their client. The Big 4, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young, KPMG (which owes its origins more to Europe than the US), and Deloitte, are the only accountancy firms with management consultancy arms large enough to handle work on the scale of HS2, along with other specialist management consultancies, such as Bain & Co., and Accenture (once the consulting arm of the disgraced and now dissolved accountancy firm Arthur Andersen). As Black&DeckerBoy said, the number of firms capable of handling the consultancy work, and the number of construction firms capable of doing it is very small, and hence there will be the appearance of "scratching each other's backs", which IMHO is unjustified. Have a look at this link to what are probably the 50 biggest management consultancy businesses http://www.stormscape.com/inspiration/website-lists/consulting-firms/. If you look at the number of employees you will see that the "Big 4" and Accenture are the 2nd to 6th largest in the world, (IBM Consulting is No. 1 in terms of headcount), and as such are most likely to have the necessary knowledge, experience and resources. The alternative would be to give the work to consultants who did not have the construction firms as their clients. But these would not have the expertise, and there would be even bigger, and arguably justifiable, complaints about giving the consultancy work to firms incapable of doing it. Edited October 26, 2018 by GoingUnderground 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
locoholic Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 Your choice of wording "... who in turn got contracts for their customers..." implies as a minimum a lack of objectivity if not a degree of underhandedness, or at worst possibly even corruption. The aggregation of accountancy firms over the last 40 years was the result of the increase in the size of their audit clients, and the need for the parent company auditor to be reasonably sure that the audits of all parts of a multinational company had been done to their standards, as well as take the financial risk of auditing these giant multinationals. when things go wrong, everyone blames the auditors (who may have to pick up the tab), whilst the directors who caused the problems walk away with big fat severance payouts. The only way to do that was for the firms to grow and form internationally based practices, often by combining with a UK rival and a US firm so they could undertake all parts of the audit of their client. The Big 4, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young, KPMG (which owes its origins more to Europe than the US), and Deloitte, are the only accountancy firms with management consultancy arms large enough to handle work on the scale of HS2, along with other specialist management consultancies, such as Bain & Co., and Accenture (once the consulting arm of the disgraced and now dissolved accountancy firm Arthur Andersen). As Black&DeckerBoy said, the number of firms capable of handling the consultancy work, and the number of construction firms capable of doing it is very small, and hence there will be the appearance of "scratching each other's backs", which IMHO is unjustified. Have a look at this link to what are probably the 50 biggest management consultancy businesses http://www.stormscape.com/inspiration/website-lists/consulting-firms/. If you look at the number of employees you will see that the "Big 4" and Accenture are the 2nd to 6th largest in the world, (IBM Consulting is No. 1 in terms of headcount), and as such are most likely to have the necessary knowledge, experience and resources. The alternative would be to give the work to consultants who did not have the construction firms as their clients. But these would not have the expertise, and there would be even bigger, and arguably justifiable, complaints about giving the consultancy work to firms incapable of doing it. So HS2 is in reality a route for a gravy train?! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoingUnderground Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 So HS2 is in reality a route for a gravy train?!Oh the scintillating wit, not to mention the sparkling repartee. I'm sorry, but your arguments against the whole HS2 project seem to be getting increasingly desperate and fanciful as the orange army approaches in their bulldozers and excavators. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
locoholic Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 (edited) Oh the scintillating wit, not to mention the sparkling repartee. I'm sorry, but your arguments against the whole HS2 project seem to be getting increasingly desperate and fanciful as the orange army approaches in their bulldozers and excavators. Major sense of humour failure! Glad to see you standing up for the impoverished and widely-misunderstood accountancy firms, though. It's not just banks that are "too big to fail", after all! Edited October 26, 2018 by locoholic Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmsforever Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 The budget is on the way so watch careffully money is needed for real projects that actually will be beneficial to the whole population ie NHS, schools,defence so maybe the money tree will be cut down to a stump. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 Noticed this was featured on the news this morning - even the dead move for HS2! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45971226 An echo of the construction of St Pancras which also involved a large-scale exhumation. I wonder if any future famous British authors will be working on this one? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoingUnderground Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 Major sense of humour failure! Glad to see you standing up for the impoverished and widely-misunderstood accountancy firms, though. It's not just banks that are "too big to fail", after all! Careful, your jealousy is showing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
black and decker boy Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 The budget is on the way so watch careffully money is needed for real projects that actually will be beneficial to the whole population ie NHS, schools,defence so maybe the money tree will be cut down to a stump.You still don’t get what a tiny tiny % of government finance HS2 will be do you as it’s costs are spread over more than 10 years of budgets. Diverting the money won’t make any noticeable or measurable difference to the health, education or defence budgets in those years. Any Brexit divorce bill is looking to be close to the value of HS2 and I bet the EU will want it paid a lot faster than 10 years. I assume you voted leave to protect your little piece of England from EU migration and over development so will be most happy to use taxpayers money in this way? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 A few days ago on this thread, the discussion was around the accusation that HS2 would spoil the countryside along its route. It was pointed out that plans for heavily developing Bucks and south Oxon would have more of an impact. There's an article on the BBC web site today about the plans to build a Million new homes in the Oxford to Cambridge corridor, along with the huge amount of infrastructure, shopping centres, work places etc, needed to go with those homes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45991203 . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 Aylesbury to almost triple in size. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
locoholic Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 Aylesbury to almost triple in size. Which makes the failure to include in HS2 any kind of rail service for the area where HS2 traverses the Oxford-Cambridge "arc" even more ridiculous. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
locoholic Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 (edited) Careful, your jealousy is showing.I pay a lot of tax, and I would prefer that it was spent for the public good rather than stuffing the coffers of a cartel of big accountancy firms who provide questionable service and value for money, and lining the pockets of the senior staff who clog up the revolving door between the public and private sector, creating conflicts of interest to the detriment of the taxpayer. Jealousy has absolutely nothing to do with it. Edited October 27, 2018 by locoholic Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmsforever Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 You still don’t get what a tiny tiny % of government finance HS2 will be do you as it’s costs are spread over more than 10 years of budgets. Diverting the money won’t make any noticeable or measurable difference to the health, education or defence budgets in those years. Any Brexit divorce bill is looking to be close to the value of HS2 and I bet the EU will want it paid a lot faster than 10 years. I assume you voted leave to protect your little piece of England from EU migration and over development so will be most happy to use taxpayers money in this way? You don't get it I don't think we need HS2 and will continue to say so ,as to the EU I can remember GB pre EU and we set our own laws etc we were conned into joining this organisation by a certain PM and many have regreted it from day one.You don't seem to realise that the EU needs us as we pay one of the highest contributions to the community we leave and Germany will have to up its contributions as well as accept more people.Overall your and others comments are getting increasingly angry is it because some people wont conform and I think its not good.I appreciate new developments on rail and look forward to new stock stations etc especially when existing lines get investment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Storey Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 The budget is on the way so watch careffully money is needed for real projects that actually will be beneficial to the whole population ie NHS, schools,defence so maybe the money tree will be cut down to a stump. I doubt any of them will get what they really need, and HS2 will make naff all difference to that. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoingUnderground Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 A few days ago on this thread, the discussion was around the accusation that HS2 would spoil the countryside along its route. It was pointed out that plans for heavily developing Bucks and south Oxon would have more of an impact. There's an article on the BBC web site today about the plans to build a Million new homes in the Oxford to Cambridge corridor, along with the huge amount of infrastructure, shopping centres, work places etc, needed to go with those homes. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45991203 . Makes the environmental impact of HS2 rather insignificant in that area in the overall scheme of things. The housebuilders will be delighted with all the work. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Saunders Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 Makes the environmental impact of HS2 rather insignificant in that area in the overall scheme of things. The housebuilders will be delighted with all the work. As most of this development will be private rather than council/government then no compensation will be payable and the costs will look cheaper for like for like on HS2! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tricky-CRS Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 You don't get it I don't think we need HS2 and will continue to say so ,as to the EU I can remember GB pre EU and we set our own laws etc we were conned into joining this organisation by a certain PM and many have regreted it from day one.You don't seem to realise that the EU needs us as we pay one of the highest contributions to the community we leave and Germany will have to up its contributions as well as accept more people.Overall your and others comments are getting increasingly angry is it because some people wont conform and I think its not good.I appreciate new developments on rail and look forward to new stock stations etc especially when existing lines get investment. We do need HS2, we need the increase in capacity that it will bring, about time the government and co stopped going on about the minimal time savings. The capacity increase will allow more freight onto the current route and will hopefully reduce long distance lorry movements. The current system is full and the debacle of current upgrading of various routes whilst trying (often failing) to run a service is clear for a all to see. We need to build new routes, as it is simply to difficult to upgrade the network that is operating at near capacity all the time. Up here around Manchester upgrades are taking ages, over running and causing commuters nightmares. The south west main line upgrade is another example, that should have been a new or partially new route, that should be HS2 or 3. We need to think bigger and longer term and less about short termism. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
black and decker boy Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 You don't get it I don't think we need HS2 and will continue to say so ,as to the EU I can remember GB pre EU and we set our own laws etc we were conned into joining this organisation by a certain PM and many have regreted it from day one.You don't seem to realise that the EU needs us as we pay one of the highest contributions to the community we leave and Germany will have to up its contributions as well as accept more people.Overall your and others comments are getting increasingly angry is it because some people wont conform and I think its not good.I appreciate new developments on rail and look forward to new stock stations etc especially when existing lines get investment.We get that you don’t want HS2 because it is half a mile from your house and you think it devalues your home. We don’t get the spurious arguments and made up statements you offer in evidence. We challenge those, it’s called debate. Why should we accept your fake news? You seem unable to accept it has Royal Assent, Construction contracts ARE let and physical works ARE underway so phase 1 IS being built. You have a prime seat to watch the earthworks, tracklaying and test running unfold over the next 6 years or so. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoingUnderground Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 You don't get it I don't think we need HS2 and will continue to say so ,as to the EU I can remember GB pre EU and we set our own laws etc we were conned into joining this organisation by a certain PM and many have regreted it from day one.You don't seem to realise that the EU needs us as we pay one of the highest contributions to the community we leave and Germany will have to up its contributions as well as accept more people.Overall your and others comments are getting increasingly angry is it because some people wont conform and I think its not good.I appreciate new developments on rail and look forward to new stock stations etc especially when existing lines get investment.Sorry, but this is utter drivel in so many, many, ways, and I am old enough to know what it was like pre-EEC membership, and I voted in the first referendum.on our membership. We weren't lied to then. I won't say more as this is supposed to be an apolitical forum, and I don't want to get banned. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmsforever Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 I shall watch the development near my house with interest and I shall be interested in the passenger loadings and how it affects other routes plus it will be interesting to see just what happens on these routes destination wise.My house is not devalued by HS2 its gone up due to other factors I think that now I am far more worried about government plans for housing and roads especially as one will abstract traffic from EWR.Hope you all enjoy traveling on the first train I will wave as you go by 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Richard E Posted October 27, 2018 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 27, 2018 Let's take the worst case costs that some HS2 detractors are quoting - I think that is around £100bn. As already said that is spread out over a number of years and averages out at about £10bn a year. The NHS budget is around £120bn a year so, if all the HS2 monies were diverted into the NHS then it would increase the budget by just 8%. Then there is Education, a budget there of £70bn so diverting HS2 monies into the NHS and education brings that uplift down to just about 5%. And finally if we add in defence, with a budget of about £50bn a year we pull that increase down to a little over 4% or something around the current rate of inflation. Admittedly that would be welcomed but is it really going to make the major difference that is claimed by the opponents of HS2? What are the losses to the national economy caused by the congestion and delays on the existing network that will be relieved by moving long distance traffic on to the new line? How will that increased profitability and productivity in the private sector translate into additional tax revenue for the Government? I don't have the answer to that, nor do, I suspect, the HS2 detractors. And probably HS2 supporters do not have any idea either. HS2 is not about solving a current problem, although it will help to do that, it is about looking into the future to a time when many of us will no longer be here to care about it and thereby providing a degree of resilience to the network for the future. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ron Ron Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 "Bring Out Your Dead" Not to be outdone by the huge archeological excavations taking place at the former burial ground alongside Euston Station, Birmingham is muscling in on the act with its own "big dig". https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/hs2-exhume-thousands-brummies-who-15328366 (No jokes please, this is a grave matter). . 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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