Emeritus Prof Christopher MayFeb 25

You may not be interested in the intricacies of public procurement but @davidallengreen argues you (we) should be; while the case of Palantir's 'capture' of the UK Ministry of Defence may be an extreme case, this (in its form) is not unusual.

DAG points to six key issues:
the amount of money involved;
the lack of transparency;
a small group of favourite contractors;
the 'revolving door';
the interaction of IT & IPRs;
and the danger of no rules.

#Palantir #politics

https://emptycity.substack.com/p/six-concerns-about-public-procurement

Six concerns about public procurement

What is wrong about public procurement - and why it can be hard to do anything about it

The Empty City - a law and polity blog
Show threadSteven Heywood

@ChrisMayLA6 @davidallengreen
The other issue, of course, is the oligopolistic tendency of large umbrella consulting corporations hoovering up small companies so that if you're working in local government whatever service and whatever function the likelihood is that you, the department across the road and the one round the corner will be buying from the same company. It's like buying from and having a commercial relationship with a small company that has large company resources available to invest in the prolonged hoop-jumping and cost undercutting involved in the procurement process (it's a lot more publicly transparent in local government than central so they've got the past examination papers to practice on).

(A worse case scenario is the company you've been happily dealing with for years getting bought up by a venture capitalist outfit, in which case you need to be immediately starting putting together an up-to-date specification and procurement project plan.)

Feb 25 at 7:51pmWeb
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPEFeb 26

@Stevenheywood @ChrisMayLA6 @davidallengreen

"(A worse case scenario is the company you've been happily dealing with for years getting bought up by a venture capitalist outfit, in which case you need to be immediately starting putting together an up-to-date specification and procurement project plan.)"

IME of local government this happens routinely anyway[#]. A contract might be for something like three years with an allowed extension of two without retendering, but you have to review and retender sooner or later.

[#] YMMV I guess depending on what your council sees as best practice.

Show threadSteven HeywoodFeb 26
@TimWardCam @ChrisMayLA6 @davidallengreen
This is true though this would be part of the planned contract management plan rather than a sudden emergency.