Public Procurement
It is now the end of May and I think the time has come for one final update on #ventilatorgate. Well, at least until the public inquiry into this mess gets in full swing. As of May 19th only 13,000 ventilators were available in the NHS, an increase of
teaching
A couple of weekends ago I delivered one of my yearly modules for Belgrade's University procurement masters. Instead of going to Belgrade and enjoying good food, rakija and turbo-folk I delivered two days of teaching out of the comfort of my home office. This is an attempt to
Public Procurement
The National Audit Office (NAO) published yesterday its first report into the Government's response to the COVID-19 crisis. This report does not really focus in procurement, but has a couple of interesting points for us to follow in the near future. First, the NAO has already established that
Public Procurement
Michael Bowsher, barrister and director of the King's College Diploma and Master's course 'EU Public Procurement Law in a Global Context' has just started a new blog on public procurement. Welcome to the fold Michael!
Public Procurement
I have long argued that the procurement legal framework does not exist to enable great procurement, but to reduce the probability of really bad procurement being carried out. The cavalier approach taken by the UK Government in its COVID-19 related procurement shows the importance and value of the 'regular&
Public Procurement
I haven't had much time to look into #ventilatorgate in the past couple of weeks, but there was an interesting development last Friday with an update from the Cabinet Office. On this update we found out that: 1. The UK received 150 ventilators from Sweden in the first
Public Procurement
My good friends Marta Andhov and Willem Janssen launched a new public procurement podcast called Bestek to discuss contemporary procurement issues. The first episode is on COVID-19 responses and you can subscribe to it on any podcast platform (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Soundcloud). Now if only I had the
Public Procurement
As mentioned earlier in the blog, Portugal decided to change some of the rules regulating the use of the negotiated procedure without prior publication. At the time I warned the changes made a weak system even weaker and prone to abuse. Yesterday I got wind on Twitter of a contract
Public Procurement
It is now early May and over the last few days a small number of news pieces about the process. NBC has one about how some of the Chinese ventilators could kill patients if deployed in hospitals. More interestingly, both the FT and The Guardian have broader pieces of the
Public Procurement
The PPRG has recently published a new edition of its extensive public procurement bibliography, the first from 2011 and with 4,000 new entries. The PDF is available here. Having modestly contributed to the first edition when I was a Ph.D student at Nottingham a decade ago, it is
Public Procurement
EU and Mexico have concluded negotiations for a new trade agreement after finally agreeing upon the exact scope and reciprocal opening of public procurement markets. This new trade agreement will replace the existing one from 1997. And, for once, the last technical issue to be solved was public procurement.
Public Procurement
Yesterday I mentioned trust as the key currency of the COVID-19 crisis. That was done in the context of procurement but it is valid in other Government activities and none more so than the contact tracing apps we will have to rely on as we exit the lockdowns. Even though