Posts by Sacha
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Emma Hart,
True, but that doesn't address Max's last sentence. Either there are further passes or none.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Max Rose,
When single, the passes might come at the same rate, but they might hook up with the first suitable suitor. The first data point ends the experiment, and all they remember is a long lonely gap.
Does not compute. Either the gap is long or it isn't.
What the gap means to the person is another matter. -
Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to Ross Mason,
Hijack
We've been discussing EQC-related matters most recently on the last couple of pages of this thread. I've added a comment this morning about EQC defending its payments to contractors.
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Sacha,
Surely the bigger source of outrage for disadvantaged Canterbury homeonwners is the low level of expertise that EQC seems to require for these pivotal roles.
EQC tries to justify its total spend on contracted staff.
Figures obtained by the Sunday Star-Times show the Earthquake Commission spent $144,528,907 on contracted assessors to inspect damage from September 4, 2010, until September 30 this year. The commission said it contracted 814 assessors in that time, 95 from Australia, meaning the $145.5m bill averaged out to more than $177,000 per assessor in just over a year.
Although the amount includes food, flights and accommodation costs for out-of-town assessors, it was much larger than the standard salary expectation.
Recruitment company Hays' 2011 salary guide listed the expected salary of an insurance loss assessor in Christchurch or Wellington at between $55,000 to $80,000 a year, with seniors expected to earn $70,000 to $100,000.
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Commission Canterbury event manager Reid Stiven said the cost of contracted assessors was more than expected because it had been pushed up by the long hours required, and the demand for experienced workers.
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Stiven said contracted estimators had to be builders with relevant trade qualifications, while contracted assessors "must be a person experienced and competent in communicating effectively and empathetically with a wide range of people, often in stressed situations".
He said, ideally assessors had backgrounds in loss adjusting, building, real estate or other similar roles, but people from other professions, such as law enforcement, also performed well in the role.
"One of the most valuable qualifications a prospective assessor can have is prior experience. Many of the assessors brought from outside Christchurch to help with the 160,000 post-February home assessments have experience working in events such as the Gisborne 2007 earthquake. Assessors are paired with an estimator – usually local – when they conduct assessments."
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Joe Wylie,
the land of multiple multi-level parliaments
and tripartite wage bargaining
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Richard Grevers,
we have “too many MPs”
another measure of the right's success in pushing over many years the notion that government is a problem
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Capture: Colour is the new black, in reply to Lilith __,
that carpet is.. memorable
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Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to hamishm,
People seem not to have been clever enough
Let's not slag voters on a non-political thread, eh.
Election thread over here -
Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to hamishm,
The presence or absence of Phil Goff seeming to have no bearing on the poll numbers for Labour
you're joking, right
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Christopher Nimmo,
Bit misleading, given 748,000 informal votes!
Quite. Voters managed to find a 'no confidence' option