Mathew Street Festival Cancelled

Capita Symonds were awarded contracts by Liverpool Land

such as

"Liverpool Land Development Company has commissioned Capita to project
manage highways access, infrastructure and environmental improvement works
on Wellington Employment Park, situated in the Atlantic Gateway - Northshore
Strategic Investment Area (SIA) in Liverpool."

 http://www.capitasymonds.co.uk

So If anybody was in a position to ensure adequate insight into health and safety, Capita Symonds might have been. Perhaps it was due to not obtaining contracts to provide the traffic and safety management contracts for the event - except consultants are independent. So the commercial possibilities could never have clouded anybody's judgement.

Mister Duncan Wood, Director of Consulting ( Duncan.wood-allum@capita.co.uk) would be able to confirm the independence of the Health and Safety Consultants from the Traffic Management and Event Consultants. Such as those who manage Traffic (say Rob Burton or Manny Marin on 020 7870 9300) are definitely separated from Event Health & Safety (Jeff Protheroe on 0121 410 3434). Their telephone numbers are - but is the business an end to end solution? Capita insist they are.

Capita Symonds sell services and consultancy. As such it might seem unethical for them to consult on a public event that they, effectively, have a controlling interest in. Far from being the "top" Health and Safety Consultants they are merely one of many:

"I have had very little formal training, but plenty of on-the-job training and mentoring. The best thing that has happened to me is having line managers who have believed in me, supported me, and shaped a job around me and my skills, rather than trying to put me in a box and make me do something I couldn't do or didn't want to do." Gemma - Capita Employee, (Currently Preparing a bid for Sefton)
"I've found the biggest training opportunity to be the responsibility to run your own projects and develop new business opportunities. Formal courses are always available to support on-the-job learning and development." Jon - Capita Employee
(Project Manager on a feasibility study for a Community Sports Hub in Warrington)

It's not as though Capita simply dump people in at the deep end and expect them to muddle through before moving on. They train people so that's all right then.

In selecting Capita Symonds for both redevelopment work and event management consultancy, the various agencies have made themselves, effectively, controlled by a single powerful business interest. One that believes very strongly in road charging. Just ask Jonathan Thomas ( jonathan.thomas@capita.co.uk) who sees it as access to the billions of pounds that motorists will "choose" to spend. Not that relevant to a street festival until you see the web site and how it joins up the thinking - between your pockets and their shareholders.

You could ask Capita to explain themselves. Why, after taking public money, the magnificent innovation of private industry has failed to do what public spirited people have been doing for years: actually organise a piss up in a brewery.

 http://www.capitasymonds.co.uk/contactus/submitaquery/
 http://www.capitasymonds.co.uk/contactus/