State cuts social services contract (Texas)

[brooklynite]

AUSTIN — Texas is drastically cutting a private contract for social services because of backlogs and errors in processing applications, state officials said Thursday.

The $899 million contract with Accenture to operate call centers to determine benefits eligibility will be reduced by $356 million and ended in 2008, two years early, said Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins.

Under the restructured contract, the Bermuda-based company will be largely relegated to data entry, leaving judgments about whether Texans qualify for food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare programs to state workers.

"We didn't draw the line between vendor work and state work in the right place," Hawkins said. "As we rebalance the roles between the state and the vendor, we will be drawing that line in a different place."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4420099.html

How strange; I thought the private sector always did things more efficiently...

[wakeme2008]

1. As I remember, most of Accenture workforce is in India

Good to see this did not work.

[ToolTex]

2. It wasn't suppose to work. That was the plan. This is Texas!

Now it just won't be done at all, so the poor lose out. Think of the money it will save Texans. Plenty for another income tax cut. Wait, Texas doesn't have any income tax. (Or help for the needy).

[OhioChick]

7. Yes, you are correct.

Accenture Opens New Software Lab In India

The center will employ about 80 developers and coordinate work with three existing Accenture software labs in India.

By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek

Nov 30, 2006 11:00 AM

Outsourcing and consulting firm Accenture is set to open a new facility in the Indian tech hub of Bangalore that will focus on the development of cutting-edge software applications such as those based on service-oriented architectures, a spokesman said Thursday.

The center will employ about 80 developers and coordinate work with three existing Accenture software labs in India. The company also maintains software research facilities in Palo Alto, Calif., Chicago, and France.

Accenture officials said the decision to open the lab in Bangalore was based on the city's status as India's primary tech hub and its access to a wide pool of talent. "There is no future for Accenture without a major presence in India. I would not say the same thing if I am standing in Germany," said Accenture CTO Don Rippert, at a ceremony marking the lab's opening, according to Thursday's edition of India's Business Standard newspaper.

Accenture employs about 25,000 workers in India, its largest employee base outside the United States. The company is just one of many Western outsourcing firms ramping up operations in the country to take advantage of its highly skilled, low-cost tech workforce. IBM has more than 40,000 staffers in India. Electronic Data Systems has about 18,000 employees in the country.

http://www.informationweek.com/outsourcing/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196600537

[kickysnana]

3. Accenture formerly Arthur Anderson Consulting (Associate of Enrons CPA)

Has been doing bait and switch for many, many years. 3M, U of M, Republic Airlines (now Northwest, State of MN, lately Gi voting and England. They take the low bid contract and deliver nothing and probably put spy software on the companies computers. (The spyware is my speculation.) Their legal team is twice as high big as their workforce and they word the contract so that it is difficult for companies to advertise just how bad they are but they make it into the media anyway.

They court key people in the company who make the decisoin with offers of future employment. Remember them and if you hear they are bidding on a job working with anyone that you are connected with please research and bring their track record to someones attention. They have to have violated RICO laws over and over to get away with what they are dong. Totally corrupt company.

They have quite a history in the DU archives if anyone is interested.

[PDittie]

5. Great minds, kicky.

[jwirr]

6. I assume the contract with this company is a Pawlenty trick?

[kickysnana]

8. Actually MN contract was under Carlson.

He eventually threw them out but not before they messed up the Dept of Finance. I heard from a therapist that was working with a relative that when Pawlenty was reselected he was taking an early retirement from the Corrections Department. He said that he was not going to waste more of his life working for incompetent political hacks that haven't a clue how to run anything let alone Corrections. I heard more of the same a couple other places. The people who do the work are giving up because Pawlenty is back in for 6 more years. Minnesota is still in a race to the bottom of the heap in just about everything.

[PDittie]

4. The former Andersen Consulting

formerly of the now-defunct Arthur Andersen, the company that actually paid the highest price in the Enron fallout (insert crocodile tears here). Accenture whored out Gov. Rick Perry but screwed up the contract so badly that even their bribes -- err, campaign contributions couldn't save them.