Britain should stop funding Frank Hester.

[TooBigForMyBoots]

He's the biggest donor to the Tory Party, donating £10million in the last 12 months.

His companies have been granted £100s of millions in government contracts. Mostly from NHS and Prison Service budgets. Both our NHS and Prison Services are totally fucked to the point of being detrimental to the country as a whole.

He's a misogynist. He's a racist. He's a fucking disgrace.

YABU: Frank Hester deserves to be funded by the British population.

YANBU: Frank Hester is indicative of what's gone wrong in the UK and we should stop bankrolling him.

Are his companies the most cost effective at supplying the services contracted for?

If yes, then yes.

It's disgusting what he said

The man is racist and we are rewarding him.

Fuck this shit.

And what he said was incitement to violence too. Disgraceful.

I struggle to believe there is no correlation between a £10m contribution to the conservative party and those contracts being awarded. How is that not a conflict of interest or legal?

If I was in any sort of procurement role at work I would be on bribary charges if I took any financial incentive to award contracts.

Have you tried using the system his company supplied to the NHS?

Well that's easy to check, I'll just ring my GP and get an appointment. Sure that's easy to do....

Unless of course he was contracted to create a shite system. In which case he did well.

Erm, you're basically calling for a lot of workers who haven't done anything wrong to be laid off.

When this kind of thing happens, a company's share price, reputation etc suffers, senior staff start looking elsewhere, employee morale is reduced. Supply chain might get harder to secure. He'll have been hit in the pocket, certainly.

What you don't do is try to start an online mob calling for contracts to be cancelled midway through, which really would only cause disruption in prisons and put workers through hardship.

Hear Hear. The worst system I have used in GP practices. Give me one of the other two any day of the week

Whilst he seems an unpleasant man we know nothing about the contracts he's been awarded, how they were won and how successful they've been against alternatives. An online mob calling for an immediate cancellation of his contracts and services is not in the interests of the country.

Yes. For all his vile comments , which are one of the most abhorrent things I heard for a long time, I really hope people move on to discuss the next part. Why is a massive Tory doner receiving enormous gov contracts? I honestly thought they weren’t allowed to do this so blatantly. The corruption of this government is simply exemplary.

I think we can take a wild stab in the dark at how they were won 😂

You may be right, you may be wrong. It's not appropriate to withdraw the contracts without evidence. Even then the process would need very careful management to minimise disruption whilst alternatives are secured.

@TooBigForMyBoots

he is a racist simple

Umm - yes we do. Try having a little Google on his IT company.

I've just read all about the data breaches in various computer systems that occurred in 2015, 2019, and most recently in 2024.

The UK awards OBEs to these people. (see also Post Office debacle)

As a side note - I quite like being part of 'an online mob' - it makes me sound like such a reprobate. Cool.

Yes people do like being swept up in the mob, that's the challenge for society to stay balanced.

I've voted YABU, not because I think what he said wasn't racist - in my opinion it was but he said it 5 years ago. How do any of us know if he still feels the same?

I have no time for people (whatever their political persuasion) who 'record' an unpleasant comment someone makes, keeps that information quiet for years and then publishes it to cause embarrassment.

edited for typos :)

YANBU. Public sector funded teachers, social workers and others lose their jobs if their personal conduct falls below certain standards, and I don't see justification for contracted/privatised senior leaders to be exempt.

According to this article, Hester's company was first contracted under the Labour Government;

10 February 2011

TPP was set up in 1998...
By 2006, more than 200 practices were using its software. Deployments have increased by more than five times since then...

Its prison system was selected as the national IT system for prisons in 2009
and is now live in more than 95% of English prisons.

https://www.digitalhealth.net/2011/02/tpp-to-be-second-biggest-gp-supplier/

Interesting. I wonder if the prison system one is any good?

Erm, you're basically calling for a lot of workers who haven't done anything wrong to be laid off.

Erm (whatever that means) if their work is of any value they’ll be re employed by whichever employer takes over the contract.

He’s vile Frank Hester and surely a good example of the kind of threat our politicians face in public life as highlighted by lil Rishi on the steps of Downing Street a few weeks ago.

His company makes millions of pounds profit providing substandard IT systems to government. Pre-tax profits of £40 million on turnover of £80 million 2022/23.

They donated millions to government including a personal donation of £16,000 for helicopter ride for Rishi.

The current or future contracts will not be cancelled or scrutinised, this is how it rolls when they’re spending our money folks.

Isn't Gove introducing new rules to prevent extremists and people who undermine "British values" from receiving public money?

That should resolve the issue, hopefully.