Sunday, February 14, 2010

Transparent public contracts

David Cameron's promise last week to open up all government contracts worth £25,000 or more to public inspection is welcome. (See the transparency plan from our draft manifesto.) It's not just an obscure point or even just a matter of principle. This sort of transparency is crucial if the taxpayer is to start getting good value for money. The government just keeps showing itself to be inept at negotiation, as letters to the Cambridge News this weekend on GP contracts remind us.

We can see this problem on a local level with eye-popping costs for the local councils to undertake tasks such as installing fences behind Davy Road or painting some double yellow lines. These sums may not fall within the threshold of Mr Cameron's policy but the policy is going in the right direction. We encourage any suppliers who think they can give our council better value for money on their contracts to inspects its contracts in the statutory audit period this summer...

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant", or so I tried in vane to argue to one of our Labour friends at last year's count in relation to MPs' expenses (just see how the bureaucratic quango-based solutions are costing millions more than is being saved for the taxpayer), but it seems Labour just don't get the post-bureaucratic age.

4 comments:

Frugal Dougal said...

We've had the same problems with getting yellow lines painted - the costs are, as you say, eye-popping.

Anonymous said...

Are the councils registered with http://www.supply2.gov.uk/buyer_overview.shtml ?

Chris Howell said...

Don't know is the short answer - have just emailed the procurement manager, as it looks like the type of system the Council could be using (although it still looks a bit complicated to just browse what opportunities might be available...)

Chris Howell said...

Had this back from the Council:

"Yes, we do make use of this site from time to time and it is one that we recommend to those carrying out procurements - it's referred to in the Contract Procedure Rules (para 11.1.1) and in our Procurement Quick Reference Guide on Advertising which we are rolling out as part of our procurement training programme."

Be interested to know how much it gets used...