{"id":15225,"date":"2018-05-16T10:10:19","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T09:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=15225"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:58:44","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:58:44","slug":"15225-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=15225","title":{"rendered":"‘Hubris and greed’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u015bshyster\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 bosses bear responsibility for the outsourcing giant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s devastating collapse, but the Tories lacked \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe decisiveness or bravery\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to reign in the corporate excess that allowed the disaster to happen, MPs said today (May 16).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the scathing final report<\/a> into Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s implosion, the Work and Pensions and BEIS Committees called on the government implement an \u00e2\u20ac\u015bambitious and wide-ranging set of reforms\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to reset corporate accountability, warning that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bCarillion<\/a> could happen again, and soon\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite demanded the full adoption of the joint select committee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recommendations and urged the government to do far more to prevent future corporate failures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The committees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 report said Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s board<\/a> presided over a \u00e2\u20ac\u015brotten corporate culture\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and are both \u00e2\u20ac\u015bresponsible and culpable for the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s failure\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There should be \u00e2\u20ac\u015bcareful consideration\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 of whether they should be recommended for disqualification as directors, MPs concluded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

‘Unsustainable’<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Despite the board presenting themselves in Parliament as \u00e2\u20ac\u015bself-pitying victims of a maelstrom of coincidental and unforeseeable mishaps\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, the report stated \u00e2\u20ac\u015brecklessness, hubris and greed\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 typified the running of the firm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The business model was based on \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe exploitation of suppliers\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and aggressive accounting practises that saw \u00e2\u20ac\u015baccounting for revenue on work that had not even been agreed\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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The report said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bLong term obligations, such as adequately funding its pension schemes, were treated with contempt. Even as the company very publicly began to unravel, the board was concerned with increasing and protecting generous executive bonuses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bCarillion was unsustainable. The mystery is not that it collapsed, but that it lasted so long.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

More than 1,000 Unite members were spread between Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s construction<\/a> division, where many of them were employed in the supply chain, and on outsourced contracts in both the public and private sector.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Many of these workers have lost their jobs while others still face an uncertain future.<\/p>\n

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The Pension Protection Fund has been left with an \u00c2\u0141800m liability following the collapse, its largest to date, while 30,000 contractors and suppliers are owed \u00c2\u01412bn they are unlikely to receive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The total cost to the taxpayer will be at least \u00c2\u0141150m and work on two major hospitals in Liverpool and Birmingham has been held off indefinitely.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The report is highly critical of the government which \u00e2\u20ac\u015blacked the decisiveness or bravery\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to tackle the failure of the corporate regulations that allowed the company to effectively falsify its accounts and create an untrue trading position.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Successive government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u015bnurtured\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 a service delivery model which made a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bcollapse like Carillion almost inevitable\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Work and pension committee chair Frank Field said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is a disgraceful example of how much of our capitalism is allowed to operate, waved through by a cosy club of auditors, conflicted at every turn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bGovernment urgently needs to come to Parliament with radical reforms to our creaking system of corporate accountability. British industry is too important to be left in the hands of the likes of the shysters at the top of Carillion.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail, picking up on the report\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s warning that a similar disaster \u00e2\u20ac\u015bcould happen again, and soon\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, said the fall of Carillion \u00e2\u20ac\u015bwas the inevitable outcome of a business model that embodies a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098race to the bottom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on bidding for contracts.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe public sector can change that. National and local government have the power to transform outsourcing<\/a> disasters by bringing services in house where profit is no longer the ideological master and for service contracts that are let to apply standards on quality and workforce concerns,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Cartmail said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bEarlier this week we learned about rising concerns about the potential wholesale collapse of care homes<\/a> as a direct result of councils cutting costs as their budgets are cut by government.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe real victims of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098race to the bottom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 are service users, the workforce and suppliers. At the heart of all of this is the political choice of the Conservative government.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u015bshyster\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 bosses bear responsibility for the outsourcing giant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s devastating collapse, but the Tories lacked \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe decisiveness or bravery\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to reign in the corporate excess that allowed the disaster to happen, MPs said today (May 16).   In the scathing final report into Carillion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s implosion, the Work and Pensions and BEIS Committees called on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[855,167,647],"wps_subtitle":"MPs publish damning final report on Carillion collapse","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15225"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26190,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15225\/revisions\/26190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}