Yes, it's true - damn monopoly on government contracts
This little taxpayer isn't happy.
Defence has a contract with Serco, who provide our caterers, cleaners - and our media facilities. Their employees are really quite nice people
Fair enough.
Serco thus has a monopoly on defence media requirements. Not quite so fair.
Especially when you consider the quotes for poster production - this is without a backing board, by the way, just the little piece of paper with your info on it - in comparison with quotes from other companies.
For example, one gave me a quote of a measly $160 for the 900 x 1200mm poster on lightweight plastic board. $160.
Do you know what Serco plans to charge us?
$733.58.
You got it. $733.58. And then we have to pay extra for the backing board.
They believe it will take them six hours to organise the graphics. I doubt that very much, since I have already prepared the poster and all they have to do is add the background colour, DSTO logo, and print it out on cardboard. Not brain surgery. Not at all. Obviously I am in the wrong business, because printing is where the money is.
Last year they charged my predecessor, Madelleine, over $900 for the same poster. I guess I'm getting off easy in this.
Although the money comes out of the defence media budget, it's the principle of the thing. And the fact that I'm still paying taxes, and my taxes are going into a new and unexpected pocket. Politicians being less than responsible at times I knew about, but I never knew about the contracts with private enterprises.
Defend yourself if you can - justify spending six hours twiddling graphics on a poster that, with the exception of the logo, is already prepared and ready to be printed.
Three hours I can foresee, being generous, where you must tweak the poster to fit in your program, put it in the DSTO template, and slot the .ai file into place. Any more than three hours, speaking as someone who DID study design and computing at school, infers that you are slightly incompetent, and don't deserve to have an unconditional contract to fleece defence at the taxpayers' expense.
They don't even offer professional advice for the price they charge. Why, they've printed posters where the writing is too small, without saying a word about it EVEN THOUGH they offer 'professional advice' as part of their service.
Who can you go to in order to have an inquiry carried out? Their prices might have been 'competitive' a year ago, but it's unethical to charge for hours that you don't work on a client's request.
All I'm asking for is some kind of justification for the prices.
Well, that and an inquiry.