Public Procurement
Having spent most of 2020 criticising the procurement response of the UK Government to the covid-19 pandemic, those decisions are now coming home to roost. Back in February we found out that £8.7B of the £12.1B of PPE purchased in 2020-21 was 'lost' and now we
Public Procurement
Not long after Prince Charles stood in for the Queen for the Queen’s Speech and the Government was laying before Parliament the new Procurement Bill, thus meaning we went straight from the consultation on the Green Paper to the (almost) final product without the intermediate step of a White
Public Procurement
A couple of days ago I made reference to the Department for Health and Social Care annual report and its information about the losses on PPE. As it turns out the report contained more information related to public procurement warranting a comment. Once again buried deep in the report, the
Public Procurement
The yearly report from the Department for Health and Social Care makes for grim reading in what concerns Covid-related procurement, with the headline figure being the loss of £8.7 billion of the £12.1 billion of PPE spent in the financial year of 2020-21. Over half of the loss
Public Procurement
The High Court has just handed down a landmark ruling considering some contracts awarded via the UK government VIP route as illegal, namely those with PestFix and Ayanda Capital. The judgment itself can be found here. Over the last two years (well, almost) I have taken a fairly stringent view
Public Procurement
The UK Government has finally published its response to the consultation on the Procurement Green Paper which closed in March earlier this year with over 600 submissions. Predictably the summary of the response dwells on the positives and support for the changes proposed in the Green Paper, but to be
Public Procurement
It seems that finally the chickens are coming home to roost in what concerns the behaviours of the UK Government last year while using public procurement to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Last week the FT kicked things off with an article that contained a comment from yours truly (and
Public Procurement
As promised yesterday, here's the second part of the fisking of the UK Government response to the NAO report on public procurement, focused on the "claims" section of its response: “ ” This is, frankly, pure obfuscation by means of mixing up completely different things together in the
Public Procurement
Last week I mentioned here the National Audit Office Report on COVID procurement which painted the UK Government procurement practice in a terrible light. Predictably, the Government responded with a note published on the Cabinet Office website. Said note, unfortunately, constitutes a prime example of a non-response response, that is
Public Procurement
I have kept myself quiet for some time as a way to simply observe the unfolding of the COVID crisis and the procurement answers to it. I think it is fair to say that 4-5 months in, we're firmly in the new normal and that implies some considerations.
Public Procurement
Yesterday's budget announcement included a nice £20 million pot for GovTech projects: “” What can the Government do with this? If I were Innovate UK I would be setting up an incubator/accelerator programme for startups to develop solutions based on the new innovation partnership procedure so that both
Legal
1. UK Government launches balanced scorecard for large projects. Not everyone is convinced. 2. Brexit Implications for UK Public Procurement one day workshop at the Leicester Business Festival. Not free, but organised by my good friend Richard Craven. 3. Netherlands Parliament makes open standards mandatory. 4. Spain gets jittery due