The risk of unshared service at Whitehall

Few will be surprised at the failure of the Whitehall Shared Service, set up in 2013, to deliver its anticipated savings.  I remember when first being asked to give a view on the tender document saying the major risk would be getting sufficient buy-in from the departments to deliver the benefits.  Sure enough, only two departments have now adopted the 'shared service', four others having dropped out along the way.  You can read the NAO report but, to me, for the initiative to be a success there needed to be leadership, risk management, change management, technical capability of the provider and programme management.  I'm sure the Major Projects regime will have its own view - let's face it the MPA must have to provide some accountability for delivery.

1. Leadership: who was/is leading this initiative providing a compelling agrument to ensure and the potential user departments stay the journey?
2. Risk management: How were the risks accessed and managed, particuluarly the risk of failing to deliver the business case, failure to have sufficient confidence in the new solution to shift from the old systems, failure to gain ownership of the departments, and more, to grow the number of users, failure to ensure the provider will sufficient income to 'stay the distance'?
3. Change management: I fear that like so many of these projects the emphasis will have been on the technical solution and as a result the 'people aspects' will have been sidelined - these initiatives are never just a technical solution, there will be people who need to want to shift to the new ways of working.
4. Does it work: Of course the technology has to do  what it is supposed to better than the 'old ways' but it also has to remain current and reflect the speed to innovation in technology.

Now those politically and managerially responsible need to have a response plan. Can they learn the lessons, salvage the relationships with those who have 'dropped out' and still make the investment deliver its projected benefits?  For the rest of us we can only learn.

When news of procurement doom and gloom is a good thing

News that one in four government projects is in danger of failing may surprise you as something I view as worth celebrating.

It is a good thing that if it represents an honesty in project management status. It is a good thing if represents a true assessment of risk. It is a good thing if it avoids throwing further good money after bad. It is a good thing if it leads to corrective action being taken. It is a good thing if lessons are learnt and shared.

It is a good thing if other organisations learn that honesty in project management risk is something to be valued.

However, should the projects continue 'As Is' it represents a terrible waste of opportunity and a sad inditment on strategic procurement and project management.

The risk of dysfunction Procurement Strategy

The revelation today that changes to Home Office immigration rules will mean the need for many overseas recruited nurses to return home reminds of us the need to have a holistic approach to risk management when developing policy and strategy.  It is only a short time ago that a small fortune, £20.19m,  was invested in overseas recruitment as a means of addressing nursing shortages. Now, having made that investment, the HO changes mean that investment was only a short-term 'band-aid'. It didn't solve the problem. Did the original business case recognise the wider dependencies?

From a procurement perspective, we have to see this pending crisis in parallel with the DH  'clamping down' on Agency spend. I have already questioned that strategy, but that was in the absence of knowing about the HO plan which would generate additional shortages. Did the DH lack awareness too of the HO plans when they announced the 'get tough' on Agencies strategy? Did the HO think through the dependency on overseas workers? Did the HO and DH speak to each other - did they even understand the need to risk access their strategies?

Now the DH go into negotiations with Agencies in an even weaker position. The can't train sufficient nurses within the HO 2017 guillotine and demand will only increase, and they can't make sure that the anticipated nursing shortages can be addressed through Agencies or temporary staff. It will take some very creative thinking to achieve a good outcome.

While it's easy to see the flaws in central government strategy, the lessons to procurement practitioners are clear:  don't embark on a strategy prior to doing your research and understanding what else is being considered in the organisation; have a clear articulation of dependencies; risk assess your strategy; and, avoid placing yourself in a position or weakness in the market.

Is it responsible to start procurement without having the funding?

Is it responsible to start procurement processes without having the money? I suppose the answer depends on what you mean by procurement. 

I ask the question as Danny Kenndy, the Minister for Regional Development in Northern Ireland, is reported to have stated the procurement and planning process for several [road] schemes was "well advanced", but "then we need the money".

In the procurement cycle which starts with defining the need, I would be happy that the business case stage ensures the money is available, and if that is what is meant by the procurement process, then so be it. It could also be that the Minister is referring to soft market testing and establishing the budget robustness - that would be okay too provided al the relevant stakeholders are clear on what is happening. However, if, as I suspect in this case, 'the procurement process' is really the tendering process, then, while I think there is a need to have the necessary planning approval, I do not think it is responsible to start a procurement process before confirmation the required finance is available.

We've heard so much about making it easier for SMEs to do business with the public sector and reducing the costs of doing so, but surely starting a tendering process without the required funding is placing an unnecessary risk and burden on the bidding community - that's not responsible. The only circumstances in which I think it is justifiable to place that cost on bidders would be if the buying organisation agreed to cover the cost of bidding should the procurement process not be progressed through to award. Would the NI Assembly be prepared to accept that cost?

Scottish Independence and a lesson for procurement

Regardless of whether or not you would vote 'Yes' in tomorrow's referendum for Scottish independence, few could disagree that there has been a frenzy in trying to persuade voters that they would be 'Better Together'.

But that has included the reshaping and re-spinning of a 'No' vote as representing a vote for a version of home-rule which creates a new quandary: what if you want neither independence nor 'home-rule'. Voters are now deprived of the option of 'no change'.

Setting that aside, the Westminster fear of losing has manifested itself in the generation of new arguments. I remain sceptical about the motives behind much of the 'Hug Scotland' rhetoric. I am also sceptical when I hear the word 'might' used in arguments because I immediately find myself saying "and might not". Then I wonder who in Scotland would be swayed by the likes of David Beckham's plea and justification to stay together.

What I do like, however, is the development and strengthening of the relative merits of both sides arguments. More robust discussion has taken place and the pros and cons seem to have been thoroughly aired. In the procurement world that has included the spectrum of independence being good for SMEs and bad for SMEs - can time prove which side was correct or will be faced with the "if only ..." excuse.

Yet, when I consider options appraisal as part of the procurement cycle, too often I have seen the reluctance to have a robust approach to options - procurement options appraisals have often been self-fulfilling prophesies. We would do well to learn the lessons of the Scottish debate and spend more time arguing 'why not', generating alternatives and even saying 'convince me'.

Calculating total acquisition costs: the case of the aircraft carrier.

Every good procurement person knows you should calculate Total Acquisition Costs and they need to be included within the business justification. But whose responsibility is it to identify all the potential costs and factor those into the business case and options appraisal? Equally, whose responsibility is it to identify the various dependencies which will impact on a successful delivery?

For example, when Northern Ireland recognised the need for a better Dublin to Belfast train, it was quite late in the day they discovered the platform in Belfast's new station in the centre of the City was too short to accommodate the train and many of the bridges en route too low for the train to go under - that leads to significant extra costs, which add to the costs of the procurement.

As much as that may seem impossible to believe the MOD appear to have given us another example, had it been two days later you may well have suspected an April Fool.

Aircraft carriers are big cost, in this case the budget cost has now risen from £800m to £6.2bn, yes, billion. But aircraft carriers don't just stay at sea. In this case the idea was that the carrier should be based at Portsmouth. Unfortunately the new carrier won't fit into Portsmouth harbour. To make the hole fit the ship £40m needs to be spent on dredging a new 30 foot deep channel. Fine, but then we discover that the dredging can't be carried out more than a year in advance because the harbour would silt up again - hold on a sec., does that mean that dredging, at £40m isn't a 'one-off' cost but a running cost?Who picks up that tab? In addition to the dredging, the jetty needs to be strengthened. Then there are concerns about the demand on the local electricity supply when the carrier is in port - can the network handle the demand or will additional investment be required there too?

How on earth could Procurement have been expected to know those costs? I think most would agree they wouldn't. But then someone has to ask the questions about dependencies and costs, and if Procurement don't ask those questions, we can't assume anyone else will.

Invisible ink used on the script of HS2 justification

It's very strange that a Government which advocates transparency wants to be very, very opaque. Wasn't the argument for transparency that the army of armchair auditors would be able to call their political masters to account and only those who had something to hide should fear transparency? I suppose you can understand the desire for opaqueness when it comes to the Department of Transport who suffered badly when the figures behind the West Coast rail franchise were exposed to scrutiny and unravelled? Understanding isn't the same as justification though.

Transparency delivers other benefits. The armchair auditors can be part of the risk management process providing constructive critique and highlighting risks which might otherwise have been overlooked.  Transparency also wins stakeholder confidence and helps with change management. Those benefits can't be realised if you opt for secrecy. Yet, in an age of Wikileaks and Edward Snowden does anyone seriously believe the Report will remain concealed?

However, the latest act in the HS2 farce is the decision yesterday, not to publish a report of the Major Projects Authority by invoking a bizarre workaround of the Freedom of Information Act. Withholding the report only feeds the beast of cynicism and further undermines confidence in the project. Not only that but it forgoes the benefits of transparency and makes it more difficult to argue that others should provide visibility of their decisions.

Planning for uncertainty

We've previously highlighted the problems encountered when a procurement takes place on the assumption that planning permission will be granted and then the approval isn't received. Money is wasted as a result of a poor risk management.

Given that history, I would have hoped that there would be a wariness of being too presumptuous of the planning approval process.

So, if you were going to take over one landmark, listed, art deco building which has survived the worse of the Belfast blitz and the bombing campaign of 'The Troubles', you may be cautious of assuming a clean run in the planning approval process. Yet, in Belfast, it is alleged Tesco have started to demolish internal walls of such a building prior to receiving planning approval. I may be risk averse, but to me that is a risk too far unless there is a real business case which demonstrates the expected benefits of earlier completion outweigh the potential costs which will be incurred if approval isn't received.

Tesco are so often held up as exemplary yet they also seem to have a remarkably high percentage of procurements which have not been exemplar.  Is it that they are prepared to sail very close to the wind or are they just caviller?

HS2 and risk of the cloak of invisibility

With all the questions raised so far about the business case for HS2, common sense would have said come clean as soon as possible. Those managing stakeholder engagement at HS2 just don't seem to recognise the need for clarity of the business case and effective stakeholder engagement.

The political and managerial leadership of HS2 may 'believe in' HS2 but they need to have clarity of the key messages and they need more integrity in communications.

Last night's Newsnight was yet another example of chaotic stakeholder engagement. Newsnight had clearly identified 'what hadn't been said' in the published KPMG report and had resorted to a Freedom of Information request for some answers. The FoI response provided a fuller story of the winners and losers. Then the HS2 CX fruitlessly tried to justify why Newsnight needed to resort to a FoI request.

Everyone knows there will be winners and losers with HS2, as with most business cases. The trouble comes when the emphasis is to 'accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative'. Stakeholders are rarely that gullible. Those who have most objections to change will always look for what is hidden and use that in their argument. I've been discussing these flaws in the HS2 approach for so long I'm sure some universities must now be using HS2 as an example of poor communications and stakeholder management. As this continues trust and confidence will be continue to be eroded and there's a risk that even those who will be winners will also start to become suspicious and cynical.

Were a lack of controls the problem with e-Borders contract?

Two of the recurring themes I discuss are the need for a robust business case and external scrutiny. Yet, somehow I never cease to be surprised when another failure to address both comes along - today's report on e-Borders by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration provides the latest example.

As best I can understand it, there was a flaw in the business case failing to recognise the risks of incompatibility the EU rules. That meant the targets set for the contract with the IT supplier couldn't be met, and as a result of the supplier not being able to achieve the targets the contract was terminated. This was a £500m initiative how could they have got it so wrong? The Inspector has a lot more to say but that's sufficient for our purposes.

Too often it appears business cases are constructed to support 'a good idea' and lack robustness. Business cases have to be more cynical and adopt a more risk based approach. But those charged with constructing the business case are more often than not those who have a vested interest in the project going forward - it is not CV enhancing to say 'stop this madness now'. However, in the e-Borders example it looks as though the 'Home Office' failed to have an awareness of the external EU environment - how could that have happened?

One of the purposes of the Gateway Review process was to bring external scrutiny to projects through the eyes of  'critical friends'. The biggest failure of this initiative, too me, wasn't the failure to recognise the impact of the EU rules, but the failure of the external scrutiny to ask about the external environment and how those rules could impact on the proposals.

So, core lessons:

1. Be more cynical in the development of business cases - they should be more robust;
2. Assume that those producing the business case will benefit from external challenge and make sure that challenge is robust;
3. Recognise that business cases are about risk management.

So what's all this got to do with procurement? We a contract was entered into based on a flawed business case and that contract had to be terminated because the performance levels were unachievable. Had Procurement professional had a role in challenging the business case some of those weaknesses may have been averted. Had Procurement been able to challenge the performance standards being set for the contractor, more realistic standards may have been set and no doubt that would have been reflected in a lower contract price. Had Procurement involved the market in the discussions about the business case, the market may have highlighted the risk related to EU rules. If only ... the Inspector may have been praising a good procurement as opposed to the newspapers reporting a £500m waste of money. 

HS2 recruits butcher, baker & candlestick maker for business justification

I trust you were all riveted by The Times letters today which included a letter from freight company leaders. This appears just the latest attempt at creating the ever increasing HS2 business justification - recently it had become about capacity and regeneration too. I hope I am not breaching any copyright laws by quoting from the letter:

Building HS2 will free up much needed capacity on the West Coast Mainline which is a vital freight artery. That is good news, not just for us as freight companies, but for consumers. It could remove up to 500,000 lorries a year from our motorways. With fuel and road costs predicted to increase the costs of running lorries by 36% by 2040, additional rail capacity will ensure that food and drink continues to reach our supermarket shelves, at affordable prices. It will also, crucially, allow our exports, such as automotive components, to continue to reach European markets.

I have taken the liberty of emphasising some of the clues of how desperately weak this business seems to be - grand statements which lack certainty and also fail to consider that there may be alternatives. HS2 may not free up the West Coast Mainline. HS2 may not remove 500,000 lorries from our motorways and perhaps the lorries could be removed in a different way. The prediction of a 36% increase in the cost of running lorries by 2040 assumes an absence of innovation and any change in fuel taxes. The statement of affordable prices is a nonsense if you parallel that with the reality that currently many just can't afford weekly food bills at the present time. Then to cap it all we think that the market wouldn't be able to deal  with getting automotive parts to Europe.

In a nutshell, this latest intervention highlights the lack clarity on what problem HS2 is trying to solve and that we don't seem to understand why the HS2 investment is being made.

Could this whole HS2 debacle, linked with the rail franchise fiasco, be a Michael Gove orchestrated conspiracy to add business studies to the core curriculum?  

Wobbles on HS2 business case

It is expected that tomorrow George Osborne will embark on a

different journey planner to justify HS2. The core business justification is expected to shift from reduced travel time to capacity and regeneration.

Set this against the backdrop of MPs recent confidence of having their collective voices heard over military intervention in Syria and you may say this shift of emphasis is very brave - it could actually be stoking the fire for those against the whole project.

I have discussed HS2 many times but it has struck me, from early on, that there is a need to get the basics right in communicating HS2 benefits. I'm not so sure that a good communications strategy for a procurement of this size is to be unclear what the key benefits are.

From a procurement perspective, the key question around HS2, and any other major spend, should be 'what is the problem we are trying to solve?' The answer to that question should then lead to options being generated to solve the problem. Only then can the options be appraised. If the problem to be solved is capacity and regeneration it is highly likely that you would generate different solutions than if the problem to be solved is shifting people and things faster throughout the country.

If HS2 is to get on the right track, my suggestion is that we need to build consensus on what is the problem which needs to be solved - it is a mistake to start from the position of saying "HS2 is the solution, now what is the problem?".

Do you buy Eurovision

Love or hate Eurovision, it brings procurement challenges.

Place yourself in the position of the Irish Government deciding whether or not their average investment of sending a delegation over the last five years, at an average cost of €200,000 per year, represents good value for tax payers (including those avoiding UK tax).

Ireland has had its fair share of winners over the years and has long been a country associated with culture as ‘the land of saints and scholars’. Indeed, the country’s (and one of its more famous beverages) emblem is a harp.  But does the additional exposure to anything of between 100m and 600m viewers, at a cost of €200,000 per year add value? Being last in the competition and consistently delivering poor performance is unlikely to help cultural positioning.  Perhaps Eurovision actually detracts from Ireland’s cultural heritage – I can’t believe Eurovision would tip the balance in any decision whether or not to visit Ireland, so the tourism payback must be questionable.

However, there must have been a cultural payback in the repositioning of Irish Dancing when the high kicks and short skirts of Riverdance danced on to the stage some years ago. Yet, Riverdance only had a seven minute ‘dance on part’ during the interval of the 1994 Irish hosted Eurovision – can any of you remember which entry actually won that year?  The real beneficiaries of that investment must have been those who subsequently developed the ‘interlude’ into a full length performance, danced their way around the world and on video and DVD sales – did any money actually end up in Irish hands?  So you have a working assumption of the Irish government carrying the risk of investing in the interlude but others gaining the benefits.

What of the actual song writers and singers. It seems even the more bizarre acts can benefit but carry little risk if they lose? Does that make sense to the investor of €200,000?

Of course the logistics involved in moving so many around ‘wider Europe’ must be substantial – is there a corporate hotel and travel deal?

Then there is the perverse incentive that if you actually win you will have to pay to host the next event. That will mean infrastructure investment you may not otherwise have budgeted for and also the risk of the whole thing turning into a debacle. Maybe it only makes sense to put forward a potential winning act if you have that risk well managed and have deep pockets. Having said that, we are led to believe that commercial sponsorship covers most of the actually event costs, yet negotiating sponsorship deals is frequently hard work and the negotiating power may well have moved from the host country. Are procurement professionals even involved in the discussions?

I can honestly say I didn’t watch Saturday’s Eurovision, but the more I think of it, it must represent an excellent procurement case study.  

Missing the point on HS2

If you turned on any of the TV or radio news programmes, picked up a newspaper or scanned Twitter this morning, it is almost impossible that you missed the NAO's anticipated shortfall on the proposed HS2 train link. It is not surprising that the business case doesn't stack up - even I have been questioning some of the more basic assumptions which were in the public domain. However, for the public procurement community there are more significant issues:

1. Why, after the rail franchise fiasco and the subsequent route and branch review of evaluation methodologies, were there errors in the calculations which had not been identified through internal QA?
2. In the current environment of government 'transparency' in 'all things procurement' why was the business justification not more clearly set out?
3. Why did a gateway review not pick-up and lead to the resolution of the issues identified by the NAO?

Reducing crime doesn't pay if you're paid by on the basis of demand

Not everyone gains from reduced crime. When you've contracted to deliver a service, and the service is linked to prison 'heads on the beds' you're in trouble if crime reduces.

That's the painful lesson G4S have learnt in The Netherlands, which has seen a reduction in prison occupancy rates from 14,100 in 2005 to an anticipated, below 9,000 in 2015. 30 prisons close so there is less demand for the contracted G4S prison officers. Reduced demand for contracted prison officers, for G4S, leads to the need to issue a warning over profit margins. Anticipated deduced profit margins led to a 15% fall in share price. Reduced profits and share price leads to a potential change in financial stability. Reduced financial stability of a key contractor should lead to a reassessment of procurement risk.

This should serve as a reminder to those involved in procuring services of the need to be conscious of:

• The need to align contractor incentives with those of the procuring organisation;
• The need to recognise that demand goes up and down;
• The need to design contracts which can flex for demand;
• The need to carry out market scanning and understand the potential impact of external changes.

Make or buy train sets

There was a time when every boy (or perhaps his father) wanted his own train set. I had one but it was a torture putting it up, trying to get it to work and then putting it away. I never really found  enjoyment watching a train going round and around and around in circles.

Perhaps the joy was in gaining ownership or putting things together which worked. But imagine the joy which must come if you're a train enthusiast and able to tinker with a real train, not just any train, but the 'big daddy' of them all, 'The Flying Scotsman'.

Perhaps the opportunity to own and tinker with the real 'Flying Scotsman' was just too much a temptation for the National Railway Museum.

Anyway, in 2004 the museum bought the real thing for £2.3m. Then, in 2005 they recognised the need for repairs, which they estimated would take one year and cost £250k. Now, in 2013, the repair work has cost, not £250k but £2.89m. That, in turn, has diverted funds from other areas, and indeed from the wider public purse. The hope is that the 'Flying Scotsman' will be operational in 2015 - that's quite a delay for what was a record breaking locomotive. As part of that journey it is now thought a decision will be taken on whether or not to 'buy' the remaining repair work.

Recently I applauded Liverpool on its decision to call a halt to a procurement which wasn't going to be delivered on time or budget. While I congratulate the National Railway Museum in questioning whether they should outsource the repair work, answers should be sought why a red line hadn't been drawn earlier, why the total costs of repair hadn't been better estimated in 2004, and why a robust 'make/buy' options appraisal wasn't carried out in 2005 regarding the repairs? It would also be useful to make sure that the current make/buy appraisal is robust and risk assessed. Have wider social objectives also been considered, for example, using the repair work as a training scheme or even using volunteer enthusiasts as potential repairers?

But I wonder when make/buy decisions are made, if there is a wider issue - could there be innate bias within our DNA which leads a buyer towards 'buy' and a techie towards 'make'?

Setting that aside, ironically, the 'Flying Scotsman' saga has some resonance with yesterday's blog on Glasgow's George Square revamp. There too a timely options appraisal was absent.

Perhaps there's an even bigger issue though, namely, are procurement specialists even involved in these decisions early enough to make a difference or at all?

pCard or not pCard, that is the question: Considering the evidience

The Government Procurement Card (pCard) was introduced in 1997. Its primary purpose was to reduce the transaction costs associated with Low Value Orders when it was assumed the cost of the transaction was more than the actual purchase price.  It was also believed that pCards would deliver better control and reduce fraud.

On 1 June 2012 the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published its report on the use of pCard’s in central government. While the PAC report highlights the need for strengthening controls and a refreshed business case. This blog is not concerned with the key content of the report but instead considers some of the oral evidence reported verbatim in the report. The oral evidence discussed reveals some matters of relevance to all those concerned with reducing procurement transaction costs, regardless of whether or not they are based in the UK, engaged in central government or the wider public sector.  While concurring with the PAC findings and recommendations, the significance of some of the key issues debated appears to have been missed in the key body of the PAC Report.

Veering towards procurement bravery or stupid sourcing?

On 9 May, despite others criticising the government's U-turn on fighter jets, I tweeted that the U-turn was worthy of praise.  It took bravery to recognise a wrong procurement decision had been made and then change direction rather than 'keep calm and carry on'.

Today we saw another potential act of procurement bravery.  This time it was the decision to place in custody the outsourcing of £1.5bn of police services.

Regardless of whether or not these were initially examples of stupid sourcing, to me there's a need to acknowledge that stupid can become brave and clever procurement.  Revisiting and changing procurement decisions before it's too late has to be one of the key benefits of Gateway Reviews. It also requires bravery. (Although somehow I doubt that a gateway review prompted the revisiting of the above two examples). Why do we so rarely hear of procurements being aborted or changed as a result of Gateway Reviews - surely that is a cause for celebration that the risk management processes worked!

Having said that,

Commissioning on a wing and a prayer

We have been inundated with discussions around the Work Programme and the associated  communications debacle.  For example, the coincidental removal of what appeared to be inconsistent guidance from the DWP website and my own comments on the due diligence associated with the appointment the 'Tsar of Contract Manipulation'.  However, I now want to draw on some insights from an  excellent academic paper which strikes me as pertinent, namely Don Harradine's paper published in Public Money and Management.

Don explored a different DWP initiative, 'LinkAge Plus', and interviewed staff from DWP, a local authority and the third sector. His findings are intriguing and resonate with some of my previous blogs:

• Proposals were developed in haste for political expediency while funding was available and it is was therefore accepted they would be flawed;
• Pilots were agreed and funded partly to justify a political agenda;
• DWP were reluctant to probe potential third sector providers' quotation costs: "if they say they can do it for that cost, that will do me"; 
• Third sector providers though lacked sufficient financial expertise to understand the relative costs associated with service delivery;
• There was a lack of agreed definitions on some aspects of contract delivery, for example, what constituted 'a contact';
• Third sector providers acquiesced on agreement of targets just to obtain the funding, even though the targets were not understood.

We need to be wary of reading across too much from Harradine's research to other DWP programmes, but

Return of the iPads

I recently  referred to being asked to produce a business case for iPads. I was astounded that, without any meaningful development of a business case, a self-fulfilling conclusion seemed to have been arrived at that business could no longer be carried out efficiently without this 'must have accessory'. 

Anyway our friends at Apple seemed to have just developed the 'sale of the century'. Now all those procurement and finance people who would advocate the need for a meaningful business case have just been punched in the solar plexus - the House of Commons Administration Committee has apparently now recommended "rapid rollout of suitable mobile table hardware" to all 650 MPs.

It's not that the MPs lack technology to support them in their work; they already have three desktops and two laptops - I suspect also a Blackberry. (I hope someone has asked the question relating to how much slower they travel with all this luggage.  I also hope they have completed an H&S assessment to protect against potential injury.)
Nevertheless,