Expensive speaking clock

a website to check the time? surely to check a website you need a computer - and every pc that i have used in the last ten years has had a clock in the bottom corner of the screen.

Or plan B - could somebody not have put a clock on the wall? or is that also too simple.
 
It always irks me when people putting in new phone/comms systems test EVERY position and/or voice recording by dialling the speaking clock. Just get a colleague on the end of a phone to answer each time FFS!
 
Glaucus said:
What the ***** those staff hp just need sacking. And why the hell did they just not block the number.
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The MoD did block the number, their phone system however had a glitch which still allowed the calls in some cases. This is a bit of a political hoohaa engineered by the opposition to attack the Government on its Cuts Policy rather than a real issue at the MoD as it has been dealt with and as the MoD itself had banned the practice some time ago, it is one which is a disciplinary issue within the MoD and not one of Governmental Institutional Waste as Labour would like the public to believe.
 
This is the most rtarded thing I've heard - surely the time is one the phone they are using to make the calls like most work phones?
 
What kind of people are the MoD hiring, What *****. Unless of course this "bill" is not actually for the talking clock service.. But put through the books as that.
 
Castiel said:
The MoD did block the number, their phone system however had a glitch which still allowed the calls in some cases. This is a bit of a political hoohaa engineered by the opposition to attack the Government on its Cuts Policy rather than a real issue at the MoD as it has been dealt with and as the MoD itself had banned the practice some time ago, it is one which is a disciplinary issue within the MoD and not one of Governmental Institutional Waste as Labour would like the public to believe.
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I think the overwhelming issue is the collective bone-headedness of the employees.

130,000 calls! What the hell, who are you people! That's a thousand calls for 130 people (obviously), which is crazy.
 
I don't even understand why you would need to ring the speaking clock in this day and age. If you have a mobile, it will have the time. If you are in a building with a landline, the time will surely be available somewhere.

Who was ringing it and where were they ringing from??

Makes no sense.
 
Nitefly said:
I think the overwhelming issue is the collective bone-headedness of the employees.

130,000 calls! What the hell, who are you people! That's a thousand calls for 130 people (obviously), which is crazy.
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It was common practice to use the speaking clock, as technology has progressed there are now obviously free ways to access accurate timekeeping (which is essential in many aspects of the MoD workload) these employees have obviously not followed the memoranda and simply continued in a procedure they have followed for years...and the issue with the IT dept meant that they could do so.

The point I was making is that the Opposition (and by association the Media) is making this to be a political issue when in reality it is simply a procedural issue within the workplace.

This is being blown out of all proportion just for political gain.
 
Jokester said:
The speaking clock is used as a time reference in industry, I would imagine the military would use it in a similar manner.
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I'm sure there are more reliable and instant sources for time than the speaking clock, especially in the military. Even the US Naval Observatory operates several stratum 1 NTP servers. I'm sure the MoD have something similar.

If the MoD rely on the "talking clock" as an accurate source of time then that's laughable.

Also, from the article:

"They were given a list of websites they could use to get the time free, but calls have continued"

This is still pretty bad practice. If accurate timestamping/recording is required then going on some random websites outside of their management is stupid. If it's crucial for their operations the MoD need to have their own internal facilities to accurately give out the correct time. They should be doing this already.
 
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Glaucus said:
What the ***** those staff hp just need sacking. And why the hell did they just not block the number.
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An IT error meant they never thought to do it properly, and only blocked it from one phone system, like everything the MoD seems to do, its poorly thought out, poorly actioned, and then poorly implemented.
They speak of success in a drop from 15k 2 years ago to only 6k so far this year, given that we're halfway through the year, its not a dramatic drop.
One wonders what the staff do during the rest of the day and who they are making phone calls to for that period.

I do find the labour comment hilarious. Some tard without a job is saying ministers are failing in their promise to cut waste. Does the tard not understand that ministers might set rules or introduce its up to the actual department to make the policy work and enforce it?
Team Labour: Tard Police... ^%$£ yeah.
 
Castiel said:
This is being blown out of all proportion just for political gain.
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We've been told to turn the lights off to save money for the Government.

I would prefer OGD's to look at their watch as opposed to profligate spending on 123!

This isn't the opposition, but seemingly a lot of civil servants within the MOD that are refusing to follow a lawful instruction. It's a conduct issue essentially.

Those figures work out to, on average, 23 people an hour every hour during office hours using a service they have been barred from using.

It's Taxpayers money at the end of the day, and I'm sure they could find out the time cheaper.
 
There is potential for this to be related to their internal phone system and what they dial for an outside line.

I regularly annoy the reception by dialling 0 instead of 9-then 0 in my place.

It's a non issue anyway, it's been dealt with and, tbh £40k is nothing given the number of employees and sites. Vastly more money will have been spent looking into it in relation to that article
 
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