OT: Olympic security

[The Medway Handyman]

Seems like G4 have made a right dogs breakfast of the security for the Olympics.

But one gas to ask, why was the security put out to a private contractor?

£280,000,000 for 10,000 security staff? £28K per man?

Why not use the army? Plenty of them, well trained, well disciplined, nobody's going to argue with them. We are already paying their wages & food.

Ask for 10,000 volunteers, they already have tents & field kitchens. Offer them £5k tax free bonus each for the job. Total cost £50m, saving £230M.

Or am I missing something?

[Tim Streater]

Well why not. Plenty of other things are. I can't remember the last navy ship that was built by the MoD.

No, the problem, as with the carriers, the NHS, etc etc, is that the government appears incapable of writing a contract.

Have we got that many? And I assume they'll still need training, badging, managing, etc. OK I know they do that at Wimbledon, but this is a rather larger scale.

[fred]

In article , The Medway Handyman writes

Yes, it is not a defence of the realm issue, they are not a bunch of night watchmen to be hired out at knock down rates to a commercial operation.

They have a job and they do it well, let's not demean their position in society by asking them to do this in anything other than an emergency provisioning situation such as the current one.

I'll leave the discussions on Group 4 paying peanuts and getting monkeys to the spanners on the political groups.

[The Medway Handyman]

Not suggesting that. Use them 'instead' of the commercial organisation.

[fred]

Sorry, I meant that the olympics is a commercial organisation, it stopped being about the sport many moons ago.

[ARWadsworth]

Are you sure that we pay for their food?

I always believed that food and accomodation charges are deducted from their wages unless they on active combat duties.

It's a few years since I had a lodger with a soldier boyfiend so I cannot check this one out.

[Alan]

In message , The Medway Handyman wrote

It's a part time job and probably at very close to minimum wage. Is it any surprise that many of the people recruited will not be turning up?

[Frank Erskine]

The real problem with using the military is that it may give the impression to certain outsiders that this country is run by a military junta.

Re your comment on £28k per year - in the civil service (remember that?) it was reckoned (as a guide to recruiting staff) that the cost of "employing" somebody was approximately twice their salary. Obviously it may differ when staff are (or aren't ) recruited by G4S.

[Owain]

It seems (from the television) that many of the people recruited are turning up, or trying to, but the rosters haven't been worked out.

Owain

[Owain]

The Olympics don't want to 'militarify' the security.

The government don't want the embarrassment if a soldier shoots somebody for bringing in 101 ml of liquid.

Owain

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

They'd be grand at shooting Taliban, of course, but they're not really trained in civilian shooing, which is another thing entirely.

[BartC]

But this job isn't for a full year.

[Brian Gaff]

Maybe someone in the dept that organised it has some interests in the company. Dr Beching all over again?

Brian

[Tim Watts]

They're all busy finishing Tony B Liar's work abroad.

But to be fair, if they had been booked 2 years ago, it would have been less inconvenient for them. I undestand a *lot* of soldiers and brass are mightily pissed off that leave/weddings/holidays booked to land between returning from Afgahistan and commencing training/redeployment has had to be cancelled with no notice.

[Tim Watts]

Ack! New keyboard please ;->

[D.M.Chapman]

Is that a euphemism?

Darren

[PeterC]

A news presenter asked about the 'recruits' that had been trained up to the point of being given a uniform and then didn't turn up (or, in at least one case, hadn't been contacted by G4S) - her point was that it would be easy for anyone to get v. close to the venues etc. without being stopped.

Some of the recruits that I saw on TV looked a bit iffy - thoughts of Taliban joining Afgahn forces/police, anybody?

[Brian Gaff]

And the Army are not allowed to take industrial action either.

Brian

[stuart noble]

Wake me up when it's all over, and don't bother telling me we're even more broke than before the Olympics

[Tim Watts]

Ha.

Our school cannot replace the lollypop lady who moved on because the council are offering 3.35 GBP per half hour for 2 half hour stints, which would also involve 15-20 mins of getting there/setting up/going home even if you lived in the village.

Funny how they can pay their senior executives big bucks "to attract and retain talent"...