Public sector contracting - Does it depend on who you know?
The National Audit Office has released its report on Dr Foster’s Intelligence, a joint venture between Dr Foster LLP & the Information Centre which is part of the DoH.
“The Department of Health and the Information Centre could not demonstrate to the National Audit Office’s satisfaction that they had achieved value for money in establishing Dr Foster Intelligence, a joint venture between the Information Centre and a private sector company Dr Foster LLP. This is primarily because they did not go out to tender to encourage fair competition.”
“………Among the NAO’s recommendations are that the Department of Health, and all government departments, should ensure that all future public-private partnerships are advertised appropriately within the European Union. It should also maintain a competitive bidding process or, in the absence of appropriate competitors, set adequate benchmarks to measure value for money.
The Information Centre should ensure that all future services are procured competitively. It should take any necessary steps to ensure a level playing field in health informatics, consulting with appropriate companies which are competitors of Dr Foster Intelligence to understand the reasons underlying any unwillingness to bid for work.”
Dr Fosters are a well known company in this field & there is no reason to suppose that they were not the best partners. However the manner in which the contract was awarded shows why new & innovative companies do not succeed in the UK.
There is an automatic tendency to go with safe familiar larger companies & this bias can quite often be a very expensive mistake. The over-specification of bidder pre-qualification requirements familiar to many a small company which has considered participating in public sector tenders is one example of inherent bias. The NPfIT / CfH debacle where consultancies with limited involvement in medical informatics ended up being LSP’s and destroyed an entire homegrown industry sector is a case in point.
I am aware of numerous innovative companies with solutions far more advanced than offered under the NPfIT being frozen out of the contracts & withering on the vine. To return the programme to regional direction after 5 years of disruption & when most of the new ventures have quit in disgust is no consolation and has severely damaged the cause of medical informatics in the UK.
And on a related note, the Public Accounts Committe had a few questions for the Office of Government Commerce, particularly concerning the lack of open competition & the way most contracts are awarded to large firms.