[News] Carillion...what would you have done?

[The Birdman]

Oh started under Major and accelerated under Brown and Blair
Who started PFI contracts

Who Started school academies
Tony Blair Was he a Tory
Who sold the gold
Who spent all the money

 

[CHAPPERS]

https://www.ft.com/content/52cc81dc-fc74-11e7-a492-2c9be7f3120a

There were no meetings between senior UK government ministers and collapsed contractor Carillion in the months immediately after its first profit warning in July 2017, according to official filings.

The Labour opposition has accused the government of complacency after Britain’s second-biggest construction company went into liquidation on Monday, asking why Carillion was awarded six central government contracts in the latter part of the year.

The largest deal, £1.4bn for two contracts on the High Speed 2 rail programme, was awarded on July 17, a week after the warning. The next day, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation gave the company two contracts worth £158m.

Whitehall’s departmental transparency data show that between July and September, there were no meetings between Carillion and any ministers from the Cabinet Office, the Department for Transport or the Ministry of Defence. Data for September to December has not yet been published.

Labour has tabled questions to explore what attempts, if any, were made directly by ministers to keep tabs on the weakening financial health of one of the government’s biggest contractors.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, shadow business secretary, said it was “astonishing” that no minister from the issuing departments met with the company even as it won two major contracts.

There were only two instances of ministers meeting Carillion representatives during the period, neither of which were related to contracts. Carillion was one of 10 companies meeting Liam Fox, trade secretary, at an infrastructure gathering on July 12 and Lord Nash, a schools minister, met the Carillion Academies Trust on September 7.