View Idea
Title:
Supplier opportunities to government and public bodies.
Reference ID:
12JT
Problem Description:
I am concerned about the apparent commercialisation of what, in essense, should be publicly available information. I appreciate that there are many different national, regional and local government bodies and departments and also thousands of other public organisations such as the MOD, NHS trusts, prisons, tertiary education etc. and that single or central coordination would be alomst impossible. However I can quote an example where if you visit the MOD procurement website you are invited to submit your details to receive an information pack on how to register and tender for MOD contracts. What then happens is that you are immediately contacted by a sales person from BIP (private companY) who, very politely and pleasantly may I add, encourages you to spen upwards of £1000 to get the information and details on forthcoming tender opportunities. I have absoltely nothing against BIP (they must indeed have tenedered and won against strict rules to attain their position) but they, and this attitude of paying for information seems to be ubiquitous acroos many areas of public supply opportunities.
As an SME contrcator and services provider we are 1/ Paying taxes, 2/ Paying to gain various accreditations such as ISO9001, CHAS, UVBD, Constructionline etc etc and then to have to pay again just to get the opportunity to tender (which also costs us money) seems to verge on being unreasonable.
One of the better tender opporunity systems is Supply2gov but this also costs up to £1000 per year
Where the information is publicly available there seem to be plethora of various websites and systems all with differing registration and information retrieval systems. I am also worried that we may subscribe to more systems than we need just to make sure we cover the field.
This is a very broad and difficult subject and one that I accept is unlikely to be clarified in the short term however I would encourage independent scrutiny and analysis as I am certain that rafts of small businesses (and possible tactical partnerships thereof) are perfectly capabale of delivering firast class service to public bodies. After all - the larger companies and main contrcators sub--contract most of their work in any event.
This problem is caused by conflicting regulations or guidance.
Proposed solution:
If possible I would like to see a
Cost or time incurred:
Working within a single accreditation and qualification framework would save this company probably £10,000 per year in hard cash terms and at a guess £20,000 per year in staff and administration costs.
Sector(s):
Private Sector , Public Sector
Category(s):
Multiple
This idea has been Rejected.
Rejected reason
This idea or suggestion has been rejected as requests for more information have not been responded to or the wording was not understood.
Official response
Thank you for sending over this problem description which has been noted by HM Treasury. Please provide further inforamtion on a proposed solution if you would like this idea to be considered further.