Showing posts with label public sector contracts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public sector contracts. Show all posts

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.