'Money-saving' UK procurement platform racks up monster tab The UK government is set to see annual spending on a procurement portal designed to help save money increase by more than eight times compared to projected plans. Introducing the Procurement Act 2023, the government said it would streamline the online portal for the public sector to flag upcoming work and suppliers to engage …
Sorry, just how is this anything to do with Brexit?
Public Sector procurement has been hamstrung by regulation for decades all to "save money". I did tenders under EU rules and after Brexit, the procedures and restrictions are pretty much the same with everything revolving round a handful of well known outfits providing solutions or services.
Now add in the various frameworks that allow procurement to bypass some of the process because the framework allegedly has pre-approved suppliers. Again the outcome is more expensive.
Public Sector procurement rules exist to:
Protect the organisation issuing the ITT from being sued by unsuccessful respondents
Allow the Private Sector to milk every last ££££ they can from the public purse.
That you cannot use real experience of a supplier to mark them down has been one of the biggest issues for a very long time. Again this is nothing to do with Brexit, it existing as part of EU procurement rules.
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1) It will cost more than estimated.
2) It will go to one of the known big boys in Govt systems or a friend of the PM.
3) It will not work even if you (the public) throw more money at it.
4) Failure will be blamed on the previous government.
5) Consultants will make lots of money "consulting" on it.
These systems *can* work and save money if they are run with a focus on what is needed by the purchasers (with due regard to seller/contractor needs) but, if handed over to commercial third parties without clear and competent oversight, they are just profit centres for the contractor running the system.
I was once part of a small team that developed a sector pre-qualification system for the UK oil & gas exploration business. Initially, it was under a non-profit company owned and overseen by some of the large purchasers; my team established and oversaw the technical requirements but the IT part was contracted out to a company that developed and ran similar systems for other sectors. Once the key standards had been set and the system was running, I stepped back and went part-time for a while, before leaving to work elsewhere. I returned part-time after a few years, by which time the whole operation had been handed over to the contractor, who then proceeded to "streamline" the system and align it with their other systems. The reason the non-profit had been set up was to ensure the system was fit for the specific needs of the sector - now it was fully in commercial hands it lost focus and, in the words of some users, became little more than a "sausage factory" (no disrespect intended to manufacturers of cylindrical meat based foods). The companies that originally set up the system have since stopped using it and set up a new non-profit that regains the sector focus needed. But I'm long retired and glad to be out of it!
