
IT consultant paid £2,000 a day to cover civil servant's job - gaius
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/11/mod-it-consultant-paid-2000-day-cover-civil-servant-job
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swombat
This article is _highly_ misleading. Shoddy reporting from the Guardian there.

She's not on a £2k/day salary, that's just the rate paid to Capita, a
consulting company. For a senior person (e.g. partner-level), £2k is actually
on the cheap end. I went for £400/day 10 years ago as a Junior Software
Engineer fresh out of uni, and by the time I left my day rate was about
£1k/day.

(My rate was from Accenture - somewhat more high profile than Capita, but
shows that £2k/day of chargeout rate is not so extraordinary).

In case this was not obvious, neither myself not Ms Ferguson take home
anything close to the day rate - back when I was being sold at £400/day my own
salary was a whopping £22k p.a.

~~~
masklinn
> She's not on a £2k/day salary, that's just the rate paid to Capita, a
> consulting company.

The point is that the state foots a £2000/day bill to replace a civil servant
who'd be paid what, 10% of that? For a total cost of 20% including charges and
the like? Which is an odd move if the goal is to reduce costs.

~~~
rjtavares
> The point is that the state foots a £2000/day bill to replace a civil
> servant who'd be paid what, 10% of that?

30% (according to the article - 500k pa vs. 150k pa).

In any case, it's a new role that didn't exist before, so there's naturally a
lot of set-up effort. It makes sense to get a more experienced person before
hiring someone definitively.

~~~
radicalbyte
You can't compare 500k pa on a short term contract with 150k pa on a permanent
civil service contract.

That 150k comes with a fantastic pension (final salary!), they have to pay
employer taxes, insurances etc. Not to mention that they're almost impossible
to fire.

It's closer to a 300k vs 500k pa comparision.

~~~
tekp2
It won't come with a final salary pension since that was reformed, but the
contributions are still around the 20-25% mark, vs 6% in the real world.

~~~
timthorn
It will if it ends up being an internal transfer.

~~~
radicalbyte
Exactly, which is 95% assured - the top positions will go to experience
people.

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DanielBMarkham
Do we really have to re-explain the difference between short-term costs of
things like rentals and long-term costs of things like employees?

This lady is a rental. You need a rental to give you breathing room to find an
employee. Very sorry, but there's nothing much to see here. This is just
attention-seeking.

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jkahn
Looks like a perfectly fair consulting rate for someone with the skill to be
CIO of a large organization.

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dkrich
So what's more expensive, hiring an expert at $4k/day who by herself in one
month can accomplish what an entire team of complacent government employees
probably can't in three years or keeping around a staff of employees who for
the most part probably are grossly under-qualified to perform this kind of
work?

This article reeks of a lazy financial assessment of this investment (ie,
person A is really expensive in dollar terms so we should be appalled that the
government laid off person B who was paid 1/100 of this sum).

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nmc
It's funny how brobdingnagian salaries have to get for people to feel shocked.

Would it be OK for only £1,000 a day? £200 a day? Seriously, where is the
limit?

~~~
infosecbuzz
Who knows? But It´s easy to see how so much money is wasted...

~~~
negamax
According to the article, the recruitment was from the private sector and pays
the market rate. If this was nepotism, then I would had agreed with the waste
argument. But just because someone is being paid 10x the majority, doesn't
make the decision to recruit them wrong.

~~~
infosecbuzz
It doesn´t make the decision wrong. It´s a supply and demand game isn´t it?
It´s hard not to second guess in this matter, but you have to presume that the
cost to replace them is much greater.

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obayesshelton
I have worked for various different companies where they pay developers up to
3 times less than contractor developers and in some cases I have seen
companies have more contractors to developers for long periods of time. I
understand contractors are useful but they are not worth 3 times more.

~~~
stevebrowne
remember a number of things (in UK at least):

Employee hidden costs: Employers NI, PAYE, car allowance, holiday pay, sick
pay, maternity pay, paternity pay, training, pension, healthcare

Contractors have to pay all of that from their turnover - along with
professional indemnity insurance, public liability insurance, accountancy fees
etc.

And note I said turnover. There seems to be this misconception that all
contractor payments go straight into the contractor's pockets. They don't,
they are business receipts that go into a company. That company then pays the
contractor.

What contractors do get is the ability to shift things around as they see fit.
Employees are stuck with whatever structure of payments to make up "the
package" is decided by the higher ups.

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rainmaking
It sounds like for the 2000 quid a day she's building systems that will
replace the jobs of thousands of civil servants.

If this is true then the real outrage here is that it's a pretty good
investment.

