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Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

reuters.com

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Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#311

Post by pureagave »

leguminous wrote: post #279
heisenbit wrote: post #217

Consultants are misused if employed on a constant basis instead of employing enough senior staff directly. There are well known drivers on both sides that tend to promote such an unhealthy setup. What is concerning at the US government is not cutting consulting but at the same time cutting staff and on top creating a hostile environment for senior staff. This is unprecedented and is not something one would do in the…

Part of the reason the US government needs to use consultants is because they can't actually pay enough to hire senior developers directly due to the constraints imposed by the GS pay scales. Often times the top levels of the pay scale aren't even available because there is some rule about how people can't be paid more than someone else. So instead they pay for consultants and all of their overhead. (Of course there…

It has been this way a long time. I interviewed and got a job offer with the Naval Research Lab in the late 1990's. It was a very cool job working on chips for space defense systems and I was told they could match any private offer and as a bonus I would retire with a full pension when I was 41 (I was 21 at the time). It sounded good and I loved the idea of making things that went into space. Then I started to get offers from companies in Silicon Valley. They were 50% higher and had free apartments for a few months plus a sign on bonus. I asked the NRL to match and they said there was no way they could. I moved to the valley...

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#312

Post by kjkjadksj »

1024core wrote: post #176
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #156

I thought the interesting thing was this quote from Hegseth: > The contracts "represent non-essential spending on third party consultants" for services Pentagon employees can perform, Hegseth said in the memo released late on Thursday. I obviously don't know the details of these specific contracts, but the general sentiment that qualified federal employees can do better than overpriced private contractors is somethin…

The Government _can't_ be streamlined because the right incentives are not in place, and human beings respond to incentives. For example: if a bureaucrat does not use up their budget, it is (often) reduced proportionately in the next iteration. So these people have an incentive to use up the entire budget, if they want to have any hope of getting their requests next year. As a result, they will often do wasteful spen…

Wait till you find out the exact same budget thing happens in the private sector. It is the world that needs streamlining not just government.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#313

Post by ksec »

bumby wrote: post #226
whimsicalism wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem is there is literally no incentive to make sure you are hiring the right people in government. nobody is sacked if you dont make your numbers, xyz. higher salary bands are a neccessary but not sufficient condition to get competent operators.

A counter point: Salary should be decent, but I’m not wholly convinced it needs to be at “market rate.” By having reasonable rates but below “market” value, you are likely creating a selection bias for people who are in it for the mission more than they are in it for the money. I think that’s a good thing. It’s like the idea that politicians should be allowed to trade stocks or else you won’t get the “best” talent. I…

It shouldn't be market rate because you get job safety. Most have never worked in private sector before and has no idea.

Salary should be dependent on Jobs nature and ability. Not by grade. Currently it is simply a power structure and hierarchy.

People should be promoted on merit. Unfortunately most working in public sector lack the ability to judge. If you think power play, bureaucracy and failing up is a thing in large enterprise. You haven't seen civil servant yet.

I cant remember which party it was but stopped the Pay Band usage and everyone is simply paid by the starting rate. UK civil servant has basically stopped most salary increase for a long time.

Because of that, instead of pay raise a lot of people got promoted which is basically everyone in every department has inflated grades. These promotion are also problematic, again, not based on merit. There are now more SCS1 than ever.

40% of work are irrelevant and made up by seniors to improve their chance of promotion. Another 50% of the work are getting around bureaucracy, only 10% of the work are actually useful.

And there is no way to fix it. Ministers dont want to fix it because they rely on cvil servant to get things done. Civil servant internally lack the interest to reform. And if anything the power of a department is measured by how many staff it has.

But none of these are new. We are now close to 50 years since Yes Minister first aired. And the documentary remains relevant, and everyone should watch it if they want to understand more. And as far as I can tell, this is not UK specific.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#314

Post by red_admiral »

leguminous wrote: post #279
heisenbit wrote: post #217

Consultants are misused if employed on a constant basis instead of employing enough senior staff directly. There are well known drivers on both sides that tend to promote such an unhealthy setup. What is concerning at the US government is not cutting consulting but at the same time cutting staff and on top creating a hostile environment for senior staff. This is unprecedented and is not something one would do in the…

Part of the reason the US government needs to use consultants is because they can't actually pay enough to hire senior developers directly due to the constraints imposed by the GS pay scales. Often times the top levels of the pay scale aren't even available because there is some rule about how people can't be paid more than someone else. So instead they pay for consultants and all of their overhead. (Of course there…

That was Edward Snowden's explanation as well, for why he was technically employed by Booz Allen Hamilton while doing sysadmin work for his former employer, the NSA.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#315

Post by jaldhar »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #259
bumby wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter point: Salary should be decent, but I’m not wholly convinced it needs to be at “market rate.” By having reasonable rates but below “market” value, you are likely creating a selection bias for people who are in it for the mission more than they are in it for the money. I think that’s a good thing. It’s like the idea that politicians should be allowed to trade stocks or else you won’t get the “best” talent. I…

Inevitably, that way of setting up an organization leads to one of two end-games: 1-A wealthy ruling class who can afford and feels entitled to be the government. See: the British Empire. 2-A wealthy ruling class who can afford to postpone profits while they accumulate power, to eventually trade that power for profit through grift. See: western democracy. Pay people as well as possible for their work and ruthlessly g…

Re: 1. Cause and effect are backward. Imperial service was actually more meritocratic than the domestic British government of that time. Look how many names of colonialists are Scottish or Irish. The former were tossed out of their land during the Highland clearances or lost influence when the Union shifted power to London. The latter were barred from high office due to their Catholic religion. But if you had talent and ambition you could go to Africa or India (and then become wealthy and ultimately join the ruling class)

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#316

Post by miltonlost »

stackedinserter wrote: post #250
aqme28 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which USAID spending? I haven't seen anything that I would say is both wasteful and significant.

It's hard to track, because it's all nice websites with generic messages like "we make life better" and pictures with obligatory diversity faces. E.g. $4.5 billion here chemonics.com. Or $3 billion here devalt.org. Where did these money go? How can we measure the ROI? USAID is a corrupt wasteful sinkhole, good riddance to it.

USAID looking for an ROI???? THat's NOT the purpose of aiding other countries. You don't need to look for a return on an investment. USAid was feeding children in places. You're looking for an ROI on saving human lives. Learn empathy.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#317

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

Aurornis wrote: post #215
ibejoeb wrote: post #21

Kinda amusing that the general sentiment so far, in a forum filled with technology expertise, is that there is certainly waste in these budgets. But, when discussing the overall trend of cutting programs in other fields where the majority doesn't have that expertise, the conclusion is the opposite.

The internet comment section “pick a side and deride the other” doesn’t work on these situations. Two things can be bad at once. The IT consulting can be too expensive. Cutting it all at once with no other plan can have disastrous consequences. Rash moves like this are things politicians and corporate ladder climbers alike love to do, but then they run far away from the consequences. They know they can convince enoug…

> Cutting it all at once with no other plan can have disastrous consequences.

Destroying everything because you don't know how to fix it or work within the system is an amateur move. Weakness masquerading as tough guy strength.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#318

Post by ben_w »

whimsicalism wrote: post #182
pjc50 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot ultimately chain people to their desks. What you either get is a "soft" withdrawal of labour (people refuse to take the job if they have any other choice available, as we're discussing upthread, so you get dregs), or the whole thing explodes into "illegal" strikes. Which are harder to resolve, because you made sure there's no one organisation to negotiate with.

the US has at-will employment, save it with the hyperbole. There are plenty of non-unionized jobs people would love to have. Collective bargaining against private actors is fine. There should be no collective bargaining against the democratic will of the people, any more than some random group of federal workers has veto power over law passed bu congress. It is simply not how democracy works.

> There are plenty of non-unionized jobs people would love to have.

That makes it easy for people to leave the government.

The question you should be asking is: are there enough people who are sufficiently competent to take on the government roles?

Case study where the workers had less power than expected: Reagan vs. air traffic controllers.

Case studies where the government had less power than expected: Every coup ever, UK's Winter of Discontent (even if the long-term result was electorate going for Thatcher who gutted the unions), Polish Solidarity Movement.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#319

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

umvi wrote: post #288
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With any "normal" president (including Kamala Harris), the federal government would likely be expanding spending and gov't programs right now Perhaps, and in such a case, the american economy would not be cratering like it has been lately, and americans would be suffering less, and america would be stronger on the international stage. In fact, all things considered, more spending would have been better for america…

You can't just spend your troubles away forever. It might temporarily alleviate things, but long term it will collapse the entire system. At some point there need to be painful austerity measures - budget cuts, increased taxes, and the like. It's unpopular to do painful things, but it's necessary for survival.

You can't just cut your troubles away: Poor educational system; low education; high income inequality; low real income growth rate; high rates of drug addition; low social mobility; housing shortages; poor public transit; decreased access to healthy food; private equity buying everything and jacking up the prices; etc.

In fact, most solutions to troubles require spending time and/or money. Very few are resolved by "do less, and do it worse".

> At some point there need to be painful austerity measures - budget cuts, increased taxes, and the like.

Perhaps: america can start with increasing taxes on the rich, instead of decreasing taxes on the rich and increasing taxes on the non-rich. That should get america more money and hurt fewer people.

Re: Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte

#320

Post by miltonlost »

whimsicalism wrote: post #308
miltonlost wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know nothing. Absolutely nothing. Medicare is EXTREMELY CHEAP compared to private insurance. You're comparing Medicare in a vaccuum when you should look at private insurance. > we simply cannot afford to be yeeting historically unheard of levels of money at the elderly without raising taxes significantly on the middle-class, that is the rub of our current fiscal situation Oh wow, we can't raise taxes on the rich?…

Medicare is extremely expensive from the perspective of the government/taxpayer. That it is extremely cheap and allows people to bid up the price of care on the consumer side is part of the problem, there is no triage or disincentive from overutilization because of how little cost share there is.

Lol so yeah, you're not comparing it to private insurance which is what TAXPAYERS actually pay themselves. You're just a right-wing hack.

"Medicare is BAD because it costs money and is cheaper than private insurance. Private insurance is GOOD because it costs even more money than we'd pay with Medicare!!"

Your position is "medicare is too expensive" but expensive compared to what??

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