X : Thoughts on private companies being on the boards of ICS (integrated care systems).
Me : Conflict of interest question? Supplier determining needs?
X : Yes
Me : It's ok, as long as
a) you have effective spend control
b) those private companies are JVs which Gov owns 51% of.

X : What if they are not 51% owned JVs?
Me : Ah, that's a bad idea. You really want your boards to have your interests at heart.
X : What about experience, partnership?
Me : Those are advisors and you take it with a pinch of salt and as much as possible use critical friends.
Suppliers will always tell you that they want to be your partners, to build a relationship, to be your friends, to find the win/win in much the same way a second hand car salesperson wants to be your buddy ... but their interests are not yours and never can be.
X : Critical friends?
Me : Occassionaly you can find critical friends. People that we willing to tell you the truth as they see it regardless of the consequences. They are not very common and it normally requires a deep sense of duty that exceeds any loyalty to others.
X : Can the relationship be symbiotic?
Me : Rarely but that depends. If the organisation has a core overiding principle of focusing on the customer need and I don't mean lip service to this but absolutely embedded into its very core then yes i.e. places like Amazon, Alibaba etc.
But most organisations, even those that talk about "focus on customer need" won't sacrifice their own self and their own well being in order to pursue that customer need. They will tend to fall back on self interest in hard times and become parasitic.
"Symbiosis" and win/win are very easy when the times are good, however the real measure of any commercial relationship is when the times are hard.
X : Why spend control?
Me : You always need an independent mechanism of challenge (outside the department and contract but within Government) to provide challenge through expertise and to spread situational awareness across many contracts. An intelligence function.
X : Why?
Me : People make mistakes, they can trapped by context, they don't understand the wider landscape, it's a point of learning ... so many reasons. Also, sometimes you get the revolving door between public / private that you want to counter.
X : Intelligence function?
Me : Yes. An effective spend control function including pre and post mortem challenge should also build up your understanding of the landscape, the supply chains, the interconnectedness of components. That would have been useful in brexit, in covid and in a host of other spaces.

More from Simon Wardley

More from Government

1.
Act of 1871
This is VERY Long but it will end with a MEGA BOOM!
Bookmark it and read it in small bits to digest it all.

This info, comes from some reputable anons and my own digging, compiled together as a superthread!
InevitableET, IPOT... to name a few.

2.
https://t.co/udep5WEYUp
https://t.co/bnzeQek6zv


3.
The TL; DR version is they, by military force, and illegitimate legislature, amended the constitution against the will of The People and legally tricked us into becoming unwitting indentured slaves of human capital and resources to THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA the corporation)

4.
Republic vs Democracy
-They needed to get away from the Republic and create a Democracy in order to drive us towards socialism and inevitably a dictatorship (National Socialist Party aka NAZI)


5.
Flag
The Government is making the same mistakes as it did in the first wave. Except with knowledge.

A thread.


The Government's strategy at the beginning of the pandemic was to 'cocoon' the vulnerable (e.g. those in care homes). This was a 'herd immunity' strategy. This interview is from


This strategy failed. It is impossible to 'cocoon' the vulnerable, as Covid is passed from younger people to older, more vulnerable people.

We can see this playing out through heatmaps. e.g. these heatmaps from the second


The Government then decided to change its strategy to 'preventing a second wave that overwhelms the NHS'. This was announced on 8 June in Parliament.

This is not the same as 'preventing a second wave'.

https://t.co/DPWiJbCKRm


The Academy of Medical Scientists published a report on 14 July 'Preparing for a Challenging Winter' commissioned by the Chief Scientific Adviser that set out what needed to be done in order to prevent a catastrophe over the winter

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