Comments on: Ron Dennis In Praise Of Valencia http://blogf1.co.uk/2008/08/29/ron-dennis-in-praise-of-valencia/ Your Regular Blog and Guide to Formula One Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:16:25 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 hourly 1 By: Steven Roy http://blogf1.co.uk/2008/08/29/ron-dennis-in-praise-of-valencia/comment-page-1/#comment-67582 Steven Roy Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:29:09 +0000 http://blogf1.co.uk/?p=1745#comment-67582 I I was in government I would not fund a grand prix circuit. F1 is swimming in money so why would I put taxpayers' money in to make the rich richer? I know that the way Bernie has structured things means that the BRDC cannot make any real money out of it so if I pay for them to upgrade now I am going to have to pay again every five years or my initial investment is worthless. I am not over optimistic about the 2012 Olympics either. Britain never delivers on time or on budget. Look at the millenium projects. Some of those were not delivered until 2005 and had been thrown together just to finish them then. Look at every major government project whether it is IT systems that don't work, military equipment that is not up to scratch etc. Until the UK government - regardless of political party - gets to grips with getting a good deal from business we will always have problems delivering on any project. I worked for a company a few years ago and the main government contractor which is a houshold name company which used to be government owned sent us some parts to be built into the item we were making. 15% of the parts were faulty and our finished product had to be returned to us for us to disconnect the faulty part and fit new. 15% of them were faulty etc etc etc. When I asked how long this had been going on I was told 15 or 20 years. No-one had made any attempt to fix the problem they just kept bumping the taxpayers' bill up. So you can imagine how much this added to the already over the top price. As an example of how much government pays industry compared to what a commercial entity would pay I give you this. I was called over and asked how much I would charge for the repair to two items returned from the same customer. I was asked by someone who was new to customer returns and who knew I had been around the industry for years. I said that it looked like £5 pounds worth of work so the company would probably charge £30-£60. He handed me a note accompanying the items which said 'The normal cost of these repairs is £625. You are due a price increase so we will pay £750 each this time and sort out the new price in the future.' Any competent business would have told its employees to get any repairs done before the price inrease was due and would never have contemplated an increase of that magnitude. Many commercial contracts actually have annual price decreases (yes decreases) built into them and many companys will not deal with suppliers unless they commit up front to five years worth of 5% decreases. If governement gets involved in Silverstone every million pounds it should cost to get something done will end up costing the tax payer at least £10-£15 million and then it will be delivered 3 years after we have lost the race anyway.. I I was in government I would not fund a grand prix circuit. F1 is swimming in money so why would I put taxpayers’ money in to make the rich richer? I know that the way Bernie has structured things means that the BRDC cannot make any real money out of it so if I pay for them to upgrade now I am going to have to pay again every five years or my initial investment is worthless.

I am not over optimistic about the 2012 Olympics either. Britain never delivers on time or on budget. Look at the millenium projects. Some of those were not delivered until 2005 and had been thrown together just to finish them then. Look at every major government project whether it is IT systems that don’t work, military equipment that is not up to scratch etc.

Until the UK government – regardless of political party – gets to grips with getting a good deal from business we will always have problems delivering on any project. I worked for a company a few years ago and the main government contractor which is a houshold name company which used to be government owned sent us some parts to be built into the item we were making. 15% of the parts were faulty and our finished product had to be returned to us for us to disconnect the faulty part and fit new. 15% of them were faulty etc etc etc. When I asked how long this had been going on I was told 15 or 20 years. No-one had made any attempt to fix the problem they just kept bumping the taxpayers’ bill up. So you can imagine how much this added to the already over the top price.

As an example of how much government pays industry compared to what a commercial entity would pay I give you this. I was called over and asked how much I would charge for the repair to two items returned from the same customer. I was asked by someone who was new to customer returns and who knew I had been around the industry for years. I said that it looked like £5 pounds worth of work so the company would probably charge £30-£60. He handed me a note accompanying the items which said ‘The normal cost of these repairs is £625. You are due a price increase so we will pay £750 each this time and sort out the new price in the future.’ Any competent business would have told its employees to get any repairs done before the price inrease was due and would never have contemplated an increase of that magnitude. Many commercial contracts actually have annual price decreases (yes decreases) built into them and many companys will not deal with suppliers unless they commit up front to five years worth of 5% decreases.

If governement gets involved in Silverstone every million pounds it should cost to get something done will end up costing the tax payer at least £10-£15 million and then it will be delivered 3 years after we have lost the race anyway..

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