To think that taxpayers should know about civil service procurement contracts

[Atlanticwinds]

This topic has always made me so uncomfortable and extremely annoyed but today I nearly lost the plot. I’m a civil servant working in a department that deals with public protection. The government sends us millions every year to run the “business” including salaries, housing of the service users, food, healthcare, personal development…etc. We’re a small department made of 4 middle managers and are given less than £7000 per year to use on providing good service and support. This is nowhere near enough and we’re always waiting for the next financial year. We spend hours per month shopping around to make sure that we spend that funding wisely and our service users benefit from it as much as possible, however many times the budget approver declines the purchase request because we are using a different provider than the ones we’re contracted with. They won’t let us buy anything from anyone else as apparently they will be fined. The contractors charge stupidly high prices and definitely aren’t good value for money.

Last week we submitted a request for 150 units from online sellers at a total cost of £1355. This is just under £10 per unit which is brilliant and it means our service users will have the items before Christmas and we still have some more money to spend on other things. The approver declined the purchase and asked us to use the contracted provider charging £27.50 per the SAME unit which is totalling £4125 and £20 delivery fee (the cheek of it!!). We are deflated and feel so let down by this corrupt system as this means that we can only buy for 54 service users and the rest will have to wait until the next budget is received next May.

Our service users are mainly people from very deprived backgrounds, with complex mental health issues, traumas and addictions. How can you keep on making cuts to save money and yet sign contracts with wealthy businesses that are constantly salivating over profits? AIBU to think that these contracts should end and we should be allowed to shop around given the tight budgets that we’re given?

The rationale is government gravy trains and creating more government jobs

i thought people knew about all this tbh.

edit - to be clear I don't approve of this. I just feel it's hopeless because even the Tories wouldn't address it. I can't see Labour going anywhere near it.

Do you not have a whistleblowing hotline

Ha I made my username whilst watching the weather forecast 😉

Public sector procurement is a nightmare. So many frustrating rules than mean that 9/10 contracts definitely end up with a worse supplier - but one good at jumping through the tendering hoops.

Yes 7k is all what we’re given. We don’t manage staff or budgets. We are called middle managers but are actually specialists supporting specific service users. We’ve been given that amount to support those on our caseload.

Yeah write to the socialists so they spend other people’s money better. Said no one ever.

On the other hand, write to the Daily Mail or the Telegraph. Blow the whistle in the public interest. Name your department, send evidence. Then watch the corrupt civil servants and politicians try and cover their arses for stealing from the taxpayer.

Because the approved supplier list is vetted. They go through a process and have to prove things like financial stability (so they don’t go under with your money), anti slavery policies etc.

Are there dodgy practices within procurement - very likely. At the very least “friends” are notified that the contracts will be available and are no doubt scored highly on the non tangible parts of the process. But as a concept procurement is sound. You have overall cost savings - and the suppliers are sound(ish).

Apparently it’s not a breach of any rule so ..

Next time any moron says that public services are underfunded, they should be shown this.

Public services are not underfunded. They are bloated, wasteful and criminally inept. Civil servants are increasingly corrupt and almost entirely incompetent. The government and scummy MPs are robbing the taxpayer and stealing openly. Giving public money away to their friends.

If you think otherwise, you are naive.

But there are so many fakes sold on Amazon, it’s impossible to do sufficient due diligence to guarantee authentic and good products each time.

There are some bizarre rules - my husband works for a company selling a certain product to the NHS, except they won’t buy it from him as he sells with a one year warranty. He instead sells it to a third party who sells to the NHS with a three year warranty at 1.5x the price as he just increases the price to cover a potential failure rate and make a profit. The NHS would certainly be better off buying cheaper with a one year warranty and replacing any items that happen to fail - but their policies prohibit this.

I think it’s called the goodheart rule - rules brought in with good intentions but that are ultimately detrimental. However when implemented at scale they may end up being beneficial for the whole NHS/civil service .

Apart from what previous posters have mentioned re vetting etc, quite often there is a reduction added at the end of the financial year or end of contract which is applied across the total number of the item ordered so Team A orders 10 items, Team B orders 15, Team C orders 20, none of the teams know about what the other is ordering so centrally any discounts negotiated through the tendering process is then applied reducing the overall unit cost of the item.

The whole ‘it might not make sense to switch’ is bollocks. This would never fly in the private sector, who also care about quality and security of supply and all those other standards. It’s waste - end of and I am pleased you are challenging.

As an example: I heard on the radio poor delivery of one project does not mean disqualification from future tender processes. That is to say Fujitsu continue to ‘deliver’ government IT contracts and I think only recently stopped tendering. WTAF.

It happens in the private sector too.

But there is a very big problem with allowing staff to just buy things cheap online, how much do you know about product safety standards? How good are you at avoiding fake products before you purchase them?

(and a good chunk of the extra you pay is no doubt being credited back to the purchasing department, and the company that got the supply contract had to spend a fortune tendering and supplying paperwork for every product on the list - but those are different problems)

As an example: I heard on the radio poor delivery of one project does not mean disqualification from future tender processes. That is to say Fujitsu continue to ‘deliver’ government IT contracts and I think only recently stopped tendering. WTAF.

The Procurement Act which is coming in force in Feb (was delayed from October) is changing the law so that poor past performance on other contracts can be considered and suppliers barred from tendering.

Yeah just let whoever spend public money with no process or regulations, sounds great.

True. Also true is that £7k budget and expenses of just over £1k is not exactly the same level of risk as procuring all the PPE for the NHS.

Proportionality.

Yes, that is exactly what is happening - 4 people are employed to manage a 7k budget 🙄🙄

Most large private sector organisations have very similar tender processes for large spends - so yes, it does.

And when the processes and regulations are counter-productive?

I disagree this happens to same extent. Regardless though the cost is passed on to the consumer somewhere along that value creation chain to maintain profitability.

In the public sector, it means lower quality or less service.

Are they though? The big controversies such as PPE was done by circumventing the set regulations as it was 'urgent'. In the OP they could have asked the approver what they meant by they'll be fined if they don't use the supplier they suggested.

What sort of thing were you ordering op

.A procurement process involves multiple departments a (frankly painful) process and several layers of scrutiny

If every “head of” could purchase from whoever they liked and whatever price - which process is more open to dodgy practices?

Yes the process could be better - but it is needed.

The government places contracts with approved suppliers because these suppliers have been through a rigorous vetting process. They have had to agree to CCS T&Cs which are designed to be equally fair to the Buyer and Supplier. When buying directly from the Supplier, the government would be beholden to their T&Cs and what might end up being cheaper could cost the government (taxpayer) much more in the long run. With all due respect, there are procurement teams who negotiate contracts day in and day out and price is only one component potential suppliers are assessed on for good reason (e.g. Carillion bailout).

Processes are necessary. If you think there aren’t inefficiencies in public sector procurement and significant improvements to make, we’ll agree to disagree.