Partnering chronicles

The story so far … Middle Tetley County Borough Council (MTCBC) has finally decided it is time to get on board the partnering steam train. The council has invited MERINOCA, formally JD Clodhopper Contracting, to come in and explain how partnering works. The business development manager at MERINOCA knows this is a good opportunity for the re-branded contractor to get some long-term cashflow and so is busy researching the topic ready for his pitch.

Do any of them know what is going on? Are they on the right track? Read on…

Internal Mail MERINOCA
From: jclodhopper/the boss
To: sam/business development manager

Sam, how is the research on that partnering stuff coming on and what are these partnering charter things you put on my desk? The article talks about trust and co-operation and telling the client how much the materials cost. How are we supposed to make any money doing that?

Internal Mail MERINOCA
From: sam/business development manager
To: jclodhopper/the boss

Justin, research is going well. Dug out all the stuff we had when we were subbies on that school project. That’s where those partnering charters came from. Don’t worry, they have nothing to do with us, we never met the client. Remember we signed those on the 19th hole at that golf day booze-up.

Internal Mail MERINOCA
From: jclodhopper/the boss
To: sam/business development manager

This sounds as if it might cost us money. So how do we make a profit out of this?

Internal Mail MERINOCA
From: sam/business development manager
To: jclodhopper/the boss

Justin, we just manage it and the subbies do all the work. If they complain about the rates we can drop them and get new ones in. As the council’s partner we get contracts for five or 10 years, by that time we will run the street cleaning, payroll, facilities management, the lot. So all this early partnering stuff is a loss leader. Don’t worry about open book accounting, they can only see what we put in, so we show them our top whack invoices from other jobs and hide our internal discounted invoices. We can also get the subbies and the council to buy the materials from our builders merchants, that’s called supply chain management. In 10 years time we’ll be the council.

Internal Mail MTCBC
From: nieve/the boss
To: dbody/a manager

Dave, when is MERINOCA coming in as it looks as if our budget might be cut unless we adopt the “Egan Principles”. Any idea what they are? I thought that report was about flogging cars and fruit and veg.

Internal Mail MTCBC
From: dbody/a manager
To: nieve/the boss

Norman, they’re in next week. I haven’t read the Egan Report but I’ve seen some articles from the MFI website. They have lots of projects on there that might save a fortune when they’re finished, but they don’t actually tell you how they manage it. Legal are in a flap. They say the deal breaks anti-competition laws and some Romany Treaty or other from Europe. I told them the boys at the Treasury are telling us to do it and they must know what they are up to. We should be OK for contracts as well as MFI has sent me a partnering contract. Not sure what it says but it must be OK as lots of people have bought it.

Internal Mail MTCBC
From: nieve/the boss
To: dbody/a manager

MFI? What has flat pack furniture got to do with it? And I thought the Romanies were gypsies? This is getting more complicated than I thought.