The Victoria Avenue work should go to local companies
Saturday 10th October 2009, 3:00PM BST.
From Graham Nears.
IN these times of recession, we are all being asked to do our bit and support local shops and businesses.
Can someone therefore explain how and why the contract for the next phase of Victoria Avenue was awarded to a UK contractor?
One would have thought the States would practise what they preach, especially when it’s £2.4 million of taxpayers’ money which has effectively been spent out of the Island.
They will ship in the required labour for the duration of the project and on completion the workers will leave and take their pay with them. This is money which should have been paid to a local contractor employing local labour.
Another own goal by the States. They should have thought through the consequences of their actions.
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Having just read about potential redundancies at Jersey Steel it is inconceivable that any work that can be carried out by local Contractors is being handed to overseas Companies.
Would the States please explain the tender process and print the results.
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I can’t understand the logic here.we have some very good contracters on the island,why on earth were they not ask to put a tender in for this work.
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I would suggest its probably down to cost! in these times when we on here are shouting for the States to be careful with our money how would we of felt if the local contractor was paid 20 / 30 /40% more thasn a UK contractor, I am all for using local but not at the expense of my hard earned tax money!
Perhaps a politician could answer and let us know the reason
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I believe the difference in quotes between the UK contractor and closest local company was less the £60k. When the budget is £2.4m the percentages are negligible, and this doesn’t include any ‘extras’ which will undoubtedly be added.
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Have you actually checked whether the workers are local or not before writing letters to the press? Trant have been in Jersey for years and have many local labourers – you need some figures to back up you claims before complaining.
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Correct Trant have been here for a while. The fact remains the money will be spent in the UK. They will import the majority of their staff. Most of the machines are on UK Reg Plates.They have even brought road cones over from the UK! Work that one out!
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Thereby undermining the struggling traffic cone making businesses in Jersey : )
I think we need to start up a petition.
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What, you mean they imported materials (cones) from the UK when they didn’t have enough? Crazy.
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Mistershifter
I’m not sure £60k is negligible. If £60k was wasted on another project then people would be crying for heads to roll. If all States departments could be that thrifty it would equate to a £17 million pound saving on States overall expenditure.
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Is this issue really as straight forward as ‘whose tender was the most expensive’?
It’s got to be worth trying to factor in how much of the money (including salaries, taxes etc) is likely to go back into Jersey’s economy.
Local companies should not be allowed to rest on their laurels and use their location to ‘fleece’ the States or locals, but we should consider the overall economy when awarding contracts.
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According to a story in the JEP dated 12 October 2009, Alan Breckon appears to prefer “foreign” contractors to Jersey firms.
Mr Breckon has issued a warning that Island construction firms could fleece taxpayers by abusing the multi-million-pound economic stimulus package.
By doing that he has effectively given “the kiss of death” to all honest and law-abiding Jersey contractors.
And this is supposed to stimulate the Jersey economy. Yet another example of “the Jersey way”!
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Of the £60K saved how much will need to be paid out to support local workers who find themselves unemployed as a result of this work going overseas.
Factor that in and it may well have cost us more, we should have a policy of no UK tenders unless our contractors are unable to do the work, we should also scrutinise local contractors and not permit them to bid for future projects if excessively expensive.
There you are, I’ve just saved the states brin ging in a panel of experts to find a solution going forward , common sense – it’s not common in the states!
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I have been trying for months to find a local builder to do some work on my property. Some don’t return your call, others return your call but fail to show up to look at the job for an estimate and others tell me that they can do the job but not until next year.
I had mistakenly thought that during an economic downturn builders might actually want jobs. They must be very busy.
As I don’t seem to be able to give my money away to a local builder perhaps I should bring in a UK contractor to do the job.
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Come on guys do you really think the states are here to look out for us! The only thing there intrested in money. There are many reasons the uk companies keep winning quotes hands down and thats down to cost! its cheaper to buy from the uk and get people to come over! Over heads are higher here and standards seem to be less, you just have to drive down most of the roads on this small island to see that, Ronez have had the states road resurfaceing system for years and its a joke, There are roads in poor countries in europe with better roads than us, reason for this is bad tarmac and the rubble under the road that was put there by the Germans sixty years ago sinks. If the UK company can do a better job and for less then so be it i will be happy with good roads, we dont have that many roads on this island and that doesn’t justify why there in such a bad way and only last a year if lucky. If proof is needed i will go around all the roads with a camera and prove it.
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Keith – Good idea.
The States continue to fail to think outside of the box. I imagine the person responsible for the saving got a big bonus or promotion, thus costing us even more.
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I’m with Stan Still #13 – how hard is it to get someone to turn up to do you a quote? No wonder the English got the job, the Jersey tradesmen are all far too busy.
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If Trant is owned outside of Jersey then any profit will never be taxed in Jersey as there are no Jersey shareholders.
If we assume a 15% profit on £2.4m that is £360,000 that would not be taxed. A tax loss at 20% of £72,000.
Therefore greater than the £60k saving that has been mentioned.
However it goes further since the profit will not in turn be spent in Jersey and therefore taxed again. Therefore the actual tax lost is even greater.
It appears that the States does not believe in buy local with things like this and the new Jersey Post project to make life easier for us to buy from the UK.
Anyone for the Jobcentre????
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#17 Robert, just don’t go to the ‘Job Centre’ and call it the “Job Centre” they don’t like it
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robert
I’m not sure you understand the process of fair tender. You cannot exclude a tender based on the tax status of the company – that would be deemed unfair. Yes it may sound ridiculous not to consider the bigger picture but official tenders have to be on a level playing field with only the final cost and service considered as criteria for basing the decision on.
Besides I’m sure a lot of local workers will be employed as there’s no way they could come in 60% under the local companies by incurring the costs of shipping all UK workers over. Locally employed workers will pay tax here on their salary.
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But Trant (Jersey) Ltd are registered in Jersey – it’s there on the JFSC website and have been sins 1985. So what is the problem?
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Perhaps you would like the local company who charged £1.25Mill for the Bel Royal central reservation fiasco to do it…?Breckon is right to see that value for money is achieved..in essence no outside companies should even be able get a look in ,if local ones priced correctly based on the immediate savings of already being here how could someone who has to bring all their gear over possibly compete and win on price…only if those here are ripping off.
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Ignoring that Trant is registered in Jersey (one assumes profits will be paid up to the parent co.) we need to know how much cheaper they came in at. I for one do not want money wasted engaging a local firm for the sake of being local. Enough cash is being wasted in states depts.
Was a schedule for completion agreed? Perhaps the UK firm had a shorter timeframe. Someone mentioned extra costs – the local firms would do the same.
Someone else mentioned the tax lost would be more than the savings made. You may have a point but the cost of the various depts having to come together (not even considering that this would be a pie in the sky idea that would ever happen in the states but anyway) would probably mount up to cost more to come to that overall conclusion.
Locals are employed on the job also so not much lost there.
Another point is that if UK staff have been brought in whilst the profit on the job might leave the island all those staff need to be housed, fed and watered for the duration of the job.
Well done to TTS (or whoever signed the contract). At least now we know how we afforded the stupid distance signs they’ve erected.
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20. Jenny…..Trant is a Jersey registered company but under the new 0/10 tax regime as they are not regulated by the JFSC they will be subject to tax at 0% on their profits. This is then taxed on the shareholders in their personal tax returns subject to quite complicated apportionment rules. However since they are not UK individuals this income will not be taxed in Jersey and will eventually be taxed I assume in the UK depending on how the Company is owned.
19. joker..I do undertsand the process and I also know in all tenders that I have been involved in there is a caveat that you need not accept the cheapest allowing the party inviting tenders to consider more than just the bottom line.
What I do hope is that all the structural changes and new layout has been better thought out and are necessary changes when compared to the fiasco at Beaumont. The problem there was the plan not the contractor….they just follow the plan good or bad! Hopefully we won’t have an over run because fire engines cannot get round or a more dangerous juction where a road is blocekd as we do now at Bel Royal!
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I wonder if a ‘Benefit to Jersey’ formula could be worked out for each tendering contractor, based on the number of local employees etc. This could be used to show the true cost of employing a UK firm over a Jersey one, and would encourage UK firms to set up in Jersey rather than the UK.
Then it really would be a level playing field.
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Tenders for this type of contract are assessed 40% on planning and quality, 60% on cost. The final decision is made by the economic stimulus board. Trant (Jersey) do not have half the required labour and plant resources on the island. My educated guess is that they need an additional 20 men in addition to their 5-10 resident staff in order to complete the contract. They carry out very little work in Jersey and may only have a presence here for tax reasons.
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Trant’s head office is near to where I was born – it’s in Totton, just outside Southampton. Whether or not they have a registered office in Jersey is academic. The fact is, they are a UK company and all the workers will probably be imported
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Jenny,
You don’t happen to work for Trant by chance do you?!!
I Think they should have at least tried to use or hire some local equipment, everything they have shipped in can be found locally, and i do know that for a fact.
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By bringing in workers from outside the Tourism Dept can say they are doing a good job and figures are up.
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I thought they were going to spread the work around?n Jayen and Trant are both owned by the same person.
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23 Robert, Do you think the fire brigade/Ambulance servies have been husheed and sat upon by the powers that be…I mean how can they be o.k. with such a hazard …..this smells rancid to me ..any answers anyone….real ones that is…
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Jayen and Trant are definitely not owned by the same person! Trant are a huge UK owned and based Contractor and Jayen are locally owned and operate from Goose Green Marsh!
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“I Think they should have at least tried to use or hire some local equipment, everything they have shipped in can be found locally, and i do know that for a fact.”
And I know for a fact that a lot of local companies do NOT hire locally either. Everyone looks at where the lowest costs and the highest profits are. If UK companies find it more cost effective to ship in equipment and materials, who can really blame them and does it not say an awful lot of the high prices in Jersey. I used to work for a Jersey building company and know for a fact invoices and quotes to the States were always a lot higher than to others “because they haven’t got a clue and they pay anyway”. Well, times are changing and the Jersey greed is now working against them!
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re posts 6 & 7 …
is it perhaps that the Jersey Cones only travel at 20mph & because of that the UK ones come over & go at least 40mph??! they get the job done quicker?!?!?
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Robert 23,
Yes but that ‘bottom line’ only refers to direct costs associated with the project and cannot include the overall tax implications of contracting a firm. To do so would mean any local company would have an unfair advantage which would not be best practice.
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34 Joker
it is an advantage not unfair…the Uk companies are larger and have buying powers that a Jersey one does not…and what is wrong with buy local..we are a small community and with other events re 0/10 we need to start looking after our own!
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Mistershifter,
I think you will find that both companies are owned by the same person, John Trant. He has managers employed to run the companies day to day.
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