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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 09:24 
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And so it starts :furious:

Next? :x

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 10:02 
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Playing a bit of devils advocate here.

Even having read the article it is not "That" clear what exactly BECTA actually does (appart from keeping nearly 400 people in well paid employment at public expense)!

Claiming as one of their major sucesses the idea that they have saved loads of money by sugesting that schools use LINUX/Openoffice etc is a bit of an eyeopener.

I dont wish to sound mean but this is hardly rocket science do we really need government funded organisations employing nearly 400 people to do this sort of thing?!

:bunker: :)

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 10:18 
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Fair point Dusty but it’s been circulated at work, (in high places too), where it’s gotten, quite rightly, up many people’s noses because we have seen the good side and benefits.

"Chief Exec of Becta, Stephen Crowne added: "Becta is a very effective organisation with an international reputation, delivering valuable services to schools, colleges and children. "Our procurement arrangements save the schools and colleges many times more than Becta costs to run.

One ex-Becta employee, Paul Wareing, noted on Twitter: "The cost of its loss will be much more than the saving of its cost."

So my worry/fear is that the Government wil do what it does best and not ask the people at the coal face, (who know more before about the work and the costs and savings), before they go in with their axe.

I'm okay with 'Lean' but please - trim the fat, not the meat as well! There's a few thousand fat NHS managers and consultants they employed in 2009 which they could chop for a start.

Why is it that we can see pointless things they can’t! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... links.html

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 11:17 
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It’s been fantastic for the SLTs at our place and been a tremendous help with AAC, and I can say it has benefited many children.

But my concern isn’t just about what they have planned for us but for all private and public services. If what I have witnessed already is a trend then who or what are they going to blunder into next if they are not even thinking of the children now.

Well, maybe they’re just not so bothered about disabled children in this case, but they can always find money for more managers. :x

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 11:44 
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Don't forget that when you are in major & serious debt you cannot 'just' keep spending.
I have little knowledge of it at all, but just looking at what is written here (& link) about it, why not just give the schools extra opening hours so that all children (who goto school anyway) get more time on the computers there. It isn't rocket science to know what good computers to buy and schools could join forces to buy in bigger number and save money.
I can't see the value for money from this surface look and this Nation needs to cut back dramatically. I agree there needs to be a balanced cut in many things and the Council & Gov waste and excessive charges and wastage would be my first aim ...

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 12:17 
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Oh I quite agree Claire, but I hope it’s done in the right areas. I know it’s got to hurt for it to work but I’d hate for patients, in this case, to be left out in the cold.

It’s a specialist service we provide, with their help, for children with disabilities and needs special software and expertise from HCPs, (Health care professionals). So it’s not something schools can take on although we often go to schools to help on site.

I realise what I/we do is small but it’s certainly not to the people we serve and I hope the country doesn’t become more barbaric in an effort to make savings. I don’t mind austerity but for anyone for whom this affects it’s starvation. Let’s not forget also that kicking hundreds of people out of work to claim benefits isn’t going to help their figures.

But that aside, if it’s true that it pays for itself or even if it just mainly pays for itself it’s a slap in the face for those workers and all the people benefiting from their service when the cuts could come from genuine areas of financial waste. Again, I fear in their quest to balance the books we will see more and more cuts from the wrong places.

Perhaps as time goes by we will see more obvious examples of this which we can post here as I realise this is a rather small, and personal, example.

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 12:42 
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I think its a bit disingenuous of them to claim that they saved more than they cost; as has been mentioned, its not hard to see where there are savings to be made, and nothing to say that the savings would not have been made without their expensive advice.

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 16:50 
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I do agree with you there Robin and maybe I jumped a bit too quickly because me/us at work are more intimately involved.

Maybe I should say instead of just completely axing it they could have changed it instead to make it better, more profitable, efficient, leaner etc. I just know one thing about it; the end user, as always, is going to be the one to suffer and we will see this in our work unless the good things they did are funded again.

If this Government's tactic is going to be to take a sledgehammer to any and every valuable resource, it doesn’t bode well and I think in time we will see this is just the tip of the iceberg in an effort to buy the family silver back. In fact I think it could well be a case of be careful what you wish for, or rather what we didn’t vote for.

They have already made it, more or less, impossible to get a vote of no confidence in The House, they say, for political stability. :roll: Let’s see what we think of them once the honeymoon period is over and their policies really start to impact on us and we find no-one can do a single thing about it.

Actually, I may need to apologise to SS for bringing this up. It wasn't my intention to ‘do’ Politics and that isn’t why I posted. It was meant as a focus on important issues surrounding the way this Government is going to address the deficit and what, and how, that will impact on us all. This has been the first impact in my field of work which is why I mentioned it. You may be next...

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 18:03 
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Dusty wrote:
Even having read the article it is not "That" clear what exactly BECTA actually does


I looked after the network for a large college for ten years and never worked out what they did either.

Dusty wrote:
Claiming as one of their major sucesses the idea that they have saved loads of money by sugesting that schools use LINUX/Openoffice etc is a bit of an eyeopener.

I dont wish to sound mean but this is hardly rocket science do we really need government funded organisations employing nearly 400 people to do this sort of thing?!

:bunker: :)


It is a wonderful idea, except employers seem to prefer people to be able to use MS products, MS discount educational prices massively and there a plenty of support staff that know MS products so they tend to be more available/cheaper than Unix/Linux techies to employ.

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 20:09 
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It is a wonderful idea, except employers seem to prefer people to be able to use MS products, MS discount educational prices massively and there a plenty of support staff that know MS products so they tend to be more available/cheaper than Unix/Linux techies to employ.


True, but I always reconed that Micro$ofts days of supremacy were numbererd once they copy protected the later versions of MS Office.

(Home users would never pay for a full copy, however by becoming familiar with a "shared" :wink: product on their home PC's they would be more likly to demand it from their employers. Good free marketing for Micro$oft. Now they have effectivly stopped all that)

I now use openoffice. there are some things that MSOffice does better, but not better enough to justify spending £££££ on it and I would rather adapt my requirements to the software than the other way round.

(Government departments should do the same. IMHO it is WRONG that the UK Government should rely on using software sourced from an forighn power! (You can tell I am not a big fan of globalisation! :D ))

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 21:34 
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Haven't read all the posts on this one ,BUT -the marriage seems hell bent on Quango culling - can we but hope that our favourite one is rising to the surface ( sort of periscope depth ) ready for some depth charges of sanity :D :D

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 21:44 
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It wasn't my intention to ‘do’ Politics


Nothing wrong with doing politics! (after all, it is the "General chat" forum! Thats what it is for surely!)

Just dont get mad.

(Getting even is fine however :D )

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 21:52 
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Dusty wrote:
Quote:
It wasn't my intention to ‘do’ Politics


Nothing wrong with doing politics! (after all, it is the "General chat" forum! Thats what it is for surely!)

Just dont get mad.

(Getting even is fine however :D )


Think the British public did that . To see old Gordo going to try to let his underlings do a deal with the Libs - Priceless -word of warning to Cameron - never play poker with Clegg .

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 21:57 
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When I hear talk about cutting out useless jobs i am always reminded about that bit in the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy where they send all the telephone sanitisers off in the B-arc. Then civilisation is wiped out by a disease caught from telephone handsets.

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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 01:13 
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The next brick in the wall will be the rearrangement of the number of mps'
Reduced to save money and give better service......so minus 70 labour mps' and out will go the lib/dems on their ears...then make it necessary for EVERY trade union member to have to personally give their approval for union money to be donated to labour.....that bankrupts labour overnight.....and guarantees an extended conservative reign......riots notwithstanding....and we have no guns now.....and the police [literally] get away with murder anyway...

Whatever reductions they make, the only people who will get hurt will be us.....the only people who will be sacrificing anything will be us. I doubt that any reductions of mps' pay will happen.....
The jobs going from public services will be us...
I see no reductions in 20 billion for new [never to be used ever ever ever] nuclear weapons and delivery systems.....well, not unless a foreign power sends their troops over here to rescue us...and even then the people hurt will be us !

Speed cameras going ?
NOT WHILE YOU'VE GOT AN ORIFICE IN YOUR REAR END !

Speed camera/anpr system expanding ?
SURE BET....PUT A CENTURY ON IT.

Roads spending cut ?
Another sure bet.

Airport tax up ?
Yes, nearly double.

Road tax ?
Yep....

Wait 'til the end of June and hear [our] pips squeaking.

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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 13:14 
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You paint quite a picture Jom! :o You would make a good PM advisor ;) Like Alistair Campbell whom, because he made an appearance on Question Time last night, all other Conservatives they asked to go on the show declined.

Spineless bunch of tossers! What did they fear? Start as they mean to go on I guess...

Don't know if anyone saw it.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8710081.stm

I think it's an absolute disgrace myself and speaks volumes about our lovely new Gov. Soz Dusty, I can't get even so I'm :furious: again.

:D

Good for you BBC, not being dictated to by #10 :clap: :clap: :clap:

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You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.


Last edited by Big Tone on Fri May 28, 2010 13:20, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 13:20 
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Personally I think that the world would be a better place if every politician always declined to appear on television :D

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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 13:45 
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dcbwhaley wrote:
Personally I think that the world would be a better place if every politician always declined to appear on television :D



In all seriousness you are quite correct!

TV (and the media generally ) is (are) an appaling enviroment in which to discuss and debate important issues. Most of the sheeple have an attention span of a demented golfish. It is almost impossible to awnser a complex question under the spotlights of a TV studio using no mere than 20 words each of which using less than 3 sylables without looking evasive and dishonost.

Frankly I dont blame MP's for being unwilling to share a platform with a manipulative spinmeister like mandleson.

Sadly, competant bullshit can almost always defeat the best of arguments in the media theatre and it is not a good way of deciding who is right and who isnt!

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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 15:12 
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Agreed Dusty, but given that's the world we live in today it has to be better to be seen to be in the game than boycott the spotlight, otherwise you send out the very message which that program sent out last night about the Lib-Cons. i.e. "I don’t have to answer to you so take a hike!"

If you take it to nth degree they could do all manner of despicable things and not show up to answer to the electorate, and that is very dangerous territory indeed. But if nothing else it just looks like cowardice. I even sensed a tone in David Dimbleby‘s voice of distain - and that doesn’t happen very often!

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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 18:14 
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Dusty wrote:
dcbwhaley wrote:
Personally I think that the world would be a better place if every politician always declined to appear on television :D



In all seriousness you are quite correct!

TV (and the media generally ) is (are) an appaling enviroment in which to discuss and debate important issues. Most of the sheeple have an attention span of a demented golfish. It is almost impossible to awnser a complex question under the spotlights of a TV studio using no mere than 20 words each of which using less than 3 sylables without looking evasive and dishonost.

Frankly I dont blame MP's for being unwilling to share a platform with a manipulative spinmeister like mandleson.

Sadly, competant bullshit can almost always defeat the best of arguments in the media theatre and it is not a good way of deciding who is right and who isnt!


Television is a trivialising medium. It is more concerned about appearance than substance. Because it is so expensive to produce and is so concerned about ratings the output is essentially tabloid - aimed at the lowest common denominator.

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