According to the Department of Transport, the most expensive "consultancy contract" it has commissioned was to the National Centre for Social Research. Sadly they've not said how much the contract was for, just that it cost more than KPMG and a number of other contracts.Who are the National Centre for Social Research you may ask? Well, from what I can tell they are an organisation that gets a very large amount of Government contracts to carry out research. Mostly the research appears to be into the implementation of Government policy along with proposals for making it better (sounds a bit like Goevrnment funded lobbying I know).
The CEO of NatCen is Norman Glass, former Deputy Director at the Treasury where he just happened to architect Labours' Sure Start policy which began in Croydon. That the policy that Blair said "has not worked" in May 2006.
Also in Croydon in May 2006 were local elections where someone called Norman Glass stood for Labour (and lost). I am not of course saying that this was the same person you understand.
Either way, how interesting it is that a man deeply embedded in the design of Labour policy and implementation would now be CEO of an "independent" research centre that just happens to get a shed load of Government contracts?
3 comments:
What do you expect? Labour politician ( failed) needs to make good pdq, otherwise, within the next year or two, you are unemployable along with several thousand more of the same ilk.
And don't think Bliar, Brown, Blears et al are going to be in any better place. Bliar has no hope of anything in UK, hence the new American "guru". The chipmunk will disappear without trace. Brown will go down in history as the man who blew it.
Interesting stuff. Look what's happened to our NHS, how many consultants did the government engage to ensure it was doing its jobs and ended up with health authorities up to their necks in debt and many closures hospital/ward closures.
Most of the time they don't need consultants, they need common sense and intelligence.
Curious organisation. Set up as a charity but it appears to be as much a commercial organisation as any consulting firm. It competes for "awards" of government consulting contracts. Is there anything charitable about this company?
It has a board of trustees that reads liek a Who's Who of social scientists and retired civil servants who probably know nothing about the difference between charities and commercial organisations.
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