Yet again I find myself “discussing” with a potential public sector client the importance of allocating sufficient time and resource to develop the evaluation criteria they will have to publish with their ITT. But this time I’ve finally realised why clients think they can afford to give this short shrift up front – they mistakenly believe they are going to decide who wins their competition after the bids have come in! (more…)
Dr Hamish Meldrum, head of the British Medical Association (BMA), said in a New Statesman article in January that said he “is anxious that the principle of ‘universality’ and ‘comprehensiveness’ on which the NHS was founded, are imperilled by the fantasy of The Health and Social Care Bill and the creation of a utopian marketplace in which private providers compete with state care”. (more…)
Last week, bemused colleagues asked me to comment about the reported use in the Czech Republic of lotteries for awarding contracts. The apparent unfairness of this was attracting their interest partly because at first sight it seems incompatible with the use of our evaluation software. (more…)
Competitive dialogue has always been an exception route, to be used only where the open and restricted procedures cannot generate the required outcome or where the authority does not know the detail of what it wants to buy (and how) in advance. Nothing new in the most recent statement, then? (more…)
At Barts and The London NHS Trust we constantly try to ensure best value in everything we purchase, but it is a mammoth task.
While 87 per cent of our influenceable non-pay spend of £195 million is covered by contracts, we need to do much more to ensure we have value for money. (more…)
What does ‘most economically advantageous tender’ mean?
Public sector procurers will immediately think of the EU Procurement Directives, the definition including quality, price, aesthetics, technical merit, functional characteristics, environmental characteristics, running costs, after sales service and delivery schedule. It is up to the contracting authority to decide which elements to include and the respective weightings. (more…)
What a difference a year makes. The UK economy lurched into 2011 sluggish but hopeful, with predictions of GDP growth of 2.2 per cent, surging to a healthy 3 per cent in 2012. Inflation was thought to be a temporary worry at an RPI rate of 4.7 per cent. Unemployment was stable just below 2.5 million.
The October 2010 Spending Review had set the scene for an austerity programme to reduce the budget deficit. There was more fear of cutbacks than actual pain – although that was to come soon enough. (more…)
In the 1970s, consumers found themselves caught up in a ‘format war’ – the battle for supremacy between electronic companies to produce the market-leading videotape recording system.
In the end, the market was narrowed to two choices – Betamax or VHS and consumers who had opted for Betamax quickly found the only place for it was the scrapheap. (more…)
Satisfying all of your stakeholders, all of the time is a tricky situation, demonstrated in a report by the Metropolitan Police Federation into the summer riots published this week.
The policeman’s representative group polled 8,500 officers about their views of the riots, including what they thought of the equipment they had been given to deal with the violence. Predictably, there were complaints about uncomfortable uniforms, boots that fell apart, and gloves that were difficult to put on when wet. But by far the most passionate criticism related to the food on offer. (more…)
Yet again I find myself “discussing” with a potential public sector client the importance of allocating sufficient time and resource to develop the evaluation criteria they will have to publish with their ITT. But this time I’ve finally realised why clients think they can afford to give this short shrift up front – they mistakenly believe they are going to decide who wins their competition after the bids have come in! (more…)![[Bloglines]](http://blog.supplymanagement.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
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