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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

#471

Post by radpanda »

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…

Another reason in favor of reliance on contractors, at least in a couple of federal agencies I’ve worked with, is to improve diversity metrics. For agencies that require lots of technical workers, the reality is that means a heavily male workforce. But agencies (up until a few months ago) liked to tout that they were “model employers” with very diverse workplaces, and near gender equity. Then you actually show up and notice the building is full of the usual (for tech) contingent of white and Asian dudes but they don’t count as employees for diversity statistics.

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

#472

Post by ecshafer »

NegativeK wrote: post #433
leguminous wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Pay is a common one from the employee's side. From the manager's side, it nearly takes an act of fucking god to open up a new position. Citizens pay attention to the number of employees, and they get mad about it. You really don't want to be the one to cause citizens to angrily call elected officials if you're in an appointed government position (i.e., an at-will employee.) I have an unsexy government job. I've seen…

I know someone who wanted to move from government contractor to government employee. He was already a veteran, had a degree, few years of experience as a contractor, etc. it took an entire year from “okay we can give you a job” to him starting.

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

#473

Post by silexia »

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.

Yes, I agree. The consultants are certainly wasteful, but I am personally aware of many employees for the government who literally have to do nothing and are actually not allowed to do any real work. We need to clean up the waste everywhere.

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

#474

Post by rurp »

next_xibalba wrote: post #108
mikeocool wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have experience in technology and biomedical research. IT consultants, particularly from the large firms, are very overpriced for the value they provide. Blindly cutting NIH grants (even some of the ones that sound silly on paper) and funding for research institutions is doing great harm to progress in modern medicine. Multiple things can be true at once.

[flagged]

> Burn it all down and start over again clean.

This approach has an abysmal track record historically and I expect history will repeat itself here. Burning complex systems down is many orders of magnitude easier than building them up, and much less fun for the people who like burning things down. So the predictable effect is that blunt wide-scale destruction almost always makes things worse.

Yes Academia and government could be vastly more efficient. Almost everyone agrees on that and a lot of work has been put into improving things. But doing that in a way that's net good requires patience and competence, traits the current people running the government openly disdain.

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

#476

Post by miltonlost »

whimsicalism wrote: post #369
miltonlost wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Go back to thinking we can only raise taxes on the middle class to pay for medicare and ignoring any taxes on the wealthy like you said in your first post. ( 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 ) Your current fiscal situation is only right-wing talking…

the vast majority of economists agree that there is simply not enough income among the wealthy that we can reach a fiscally sustainable path solely by raising taxes on the wealthy. i favor raising taxes on the wealthy significantly, but there are also hard truths about tax receipts and current spending. https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/taxes-and-mandatory-...

You just posted a poll. From 2015 Of not even 50 economists. That’s not “the vast majority” of economists in any sense. They did no statistical analysis of who said what, so this isn’t even statistically valid poll. It’s just raw numbers, with self-selection bias.

They also vary widely in their comments on what they agree with. Even if you think I’m uncharitably reading your words, you’re entirely misreading the poll and the site you posted. You’re putting your words in their mouths.

“Long run fiscal sustainability in the US will require some combination of cuts in currently promised Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits and/or tax increases that include higher taxes on households with incomes below $250,000.”

This poll question is biased and doesn’t include anything about whether taxes on those above $250k need to be increased. You’re, again, misreading the question that asked and adding in your own words about wealthy tax. There is nothing in that question that allows you to posit these polled economists don’t believe “that we can reach a fiscally sustainable path solely by raising taxes on the wealthy.”

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

#477

Post by [deleted] »

wiether wrote: post #421
bumby wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most have never worked in private sector before and has no idea. The average tenure in the U.S. government is 8.2 years. The average age is 47.2 years old. I don’t know how to reconcile the facts with your claim. Either most have been unemployed for a couple decades before coming to work for the government or it has some wonky distribution or something else is going on that you should elaborate on.

The tenure is for the job or overall in the government? Here in France it's quite common for government employees to jump through agencies during their career, so the average tenure at a job or even at an agency is not quite big. Also, keep in mind that the current comment thread is about the UK.

[deleted]

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

#478

Post by Spooky23 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #381
Spooky23 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No random federal workers have veto power over the law. Never did. Having an executive with contempt for the law and the concept of separation of powers and judicial review is a perversion of democracy. The democratic rule of the people is driven by the law. What laws have the republicans passed authorizing these actions?

what specific actions are you talking about? e: christ, why am I downvoted for earnestly asking a question

Many of the administrative actions, through the purging of 200k employees, are preventing activities that are required to be done by law from being done.

I agree it’s unreasonable that you’re being downvoted. I disagree strongly with your position, but you’re expressing it in a completely appropriate manner.

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

#480

Post by ethbr1 »

_mlbt wrote: post #414
nothercastle wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For poverty wages? In my city government workers with families almost universally qualify for subsidized housing. People in my experience get half my salary, and then half of that goes to housing. Maybe some C tier talent goes to government but not without wfh, pension or other benefits.

Federal IT workers are hardly working for poverty wages. In addition to their base salaries, they receive additional locality pay, generous benefits like paid time off, retirement benefits, inexpensive health insurance and life insurance, training and advancement opportunities, and the opportunity to receive monetary and time off awards. It’s not FAANG salaries, but they are very well compensated and the working cond…

> very well compensated

You'd have to be a GS-14 [0] to be north of $150k base salary.

That's tech team manager / senior manager, with a post-graduate degree, and 7+ years of experience in the field.

[0] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

> and the working conditions are usually great

Really? Because private sector seems a lot more stable these days.

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