G4S – Olympic Security
Join us at a fictitious review of the security contract outcome for the 2012 London Olympics.
Q. Why wasn’t the Minister informed about the problems now known?
A. Well, to be frank, who wants to give a Minister bad news? It could threaten our future career and possible honours award.
Q. Who is accountable for the failure?
A. No one! It has been a team effort and everyone has done their best to manage emerging events. Under the circumstances it is difficult to know what else could be done.
Q. Who prepared the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire that was submitted by potential security advertisers?
A. That was a team effort consisting of a specialist procurement team.
Q. Did they have experience of such complex contract?
A. They had worked on other contracts.
Q. Was legal advice taken on the content of the contract?
A. Yes, we were satisfied that all the risks had been covered.
Q. Was there a project risk register, updated on a regular basis?
A. We did discuss risks from time to time.
Q. Is Locog subject to the freedom of Information Act?
A. No
Q. Why?
A. The procurement does not fall within the EU Procurement regime.
Q. But Locog are spending public money, aren’t they?
A. Not strictly speaking.
Q. Who evaluated the tender from G4S?
A. It was a team effort.
Q. What due diligence was done to check that G4S would meet their contractual Obligation?
A. They are a large from and have > £500 Million of public sector work and in any case we has somewhat limited resources.
Q. Who was accountable for Contract Management?
A. This was a team effort.
Q. Have regular audits taken place at G4S to check actual progress against contractual milestone?
A. There have been regular reports to Locog.
Q. How much money has been spent on Contract Management?
A. They budget reporting does not show this figure.
Q. Who will pay all the costs of the Armed Forces and Police who are covering the shortfall in security personnel?
A. We are current checking the limit of liability clause in the contract.
Q. Why did you adopt a single source strategy for security provision?
A. That was deemed the most cost effective.
Q. We understand that G4S appointed staff have not arrived at key sites in the numbers required. Is
that time?
A. There are reasons for the non-arrival and these are confidential.
Q. Will you be making the G4S contract available to the public?
A. No
Q. Why?
A. It involves national security.
Q. What will be learned from the reported debacle?
A. We will give serious consideration to al points raised.
Q. It is a complete shambles isn’t it?
A. It is an isolated situation, a one-off if you like. The Olympics only occur once in most people’s lifetime and life moves on.
Q. Will G4S continue with other government contracts?
A. That is not in our domain to answer.
Q. Will contract set-off be used to recover additional expenditure?
A. At some stage that may be discussed.
Tuesday, July 17th, 2012 at 7:15 pm
wow, brilliant questions and answers. I sent almost exactly the same questions to ODA. They replied that they will get back to me under the FOIA. I sent the same set of questions to LOCOG and of course was told that as a private company they do not fall under the FOIA. Your answers are as expected. Nice