Procurement of special advisor to ensure electoral success

You are asked to hire someone who can help your sponsor win an election.

Your sponsor has expressed a concern that "political lobbying is the next big scandal waiting to happen" - you may want to include that in your risk assessment.

Your sponsors policies are also linked with reducing long term health costs. They recognise obesity, too much alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking have a detrimental impact on the electorates' health and also on the (excuse the unfortunate choice of words here) the whole life costs of running the health service. Future health costs are one of the dominant causes of politicians insomnia.

The preferred provider has a proven pedigree of being associated with electoral victories, of course that is no indication of 'cause and and effect', nevertheless it is better than always being associated with losers. The provider also has a risk if your sponsor turns out to lose.

Your preferred provider naturally enough is in the business of influencing - the trinity of steering the electorate, steering policy, and in steering big business. That unholy alliance may just have some ever so slight link with lobbying.

Given the health policy and risk of perceived lobbying, it may be clever to ask the potential provider if they have any perceived conflicts of interest. Of course you need to be very sceptical about any answers, after all, the provider's core business is getting people to make the decisions the provider wants them to make and be distracted from any thing which may have not get them to 'yes'.

Given all that due diligence, you appoint the preferred provider (did you really have a choice or was it a forgone conclusion).

This morning you were relaxing over breakfast, watching yet more depressing news coverage of sectarian violence in Belfast (wasn't that all supposed to be sorted by Blair) - having said that, thankfully there's nothing today about public procurement. You glance at The Times: "Heavens to Murgatroyd" your procurement recommendation is all over the front page, the second page, and even the Leading Articles (bizarrely but thnakfully now tucked away on page 24). Turns out there was a perceived conflict of interest - others think there's a connection between your provider, who happens to also be a consultant to the tobacco industry and a U-turn on an initiative to reduce smoking - are they mad, how on earth could anyone draw that conclusion.

Forget cutting the grass, you need to cut the LinkedIn profile and the section which said 'procured special electoral adviser'. You've just fired up your Mac to make that minor deletion, when your landline and mobile phone go simultaneously, one caller is FM and the other GO, as if twins on Big Brother, both say "Wasn't it your job to minimise exposure to risk? Is the provider paid by outcomes? Were you lobbied into making that recommendation?"

After the brief calls, you start to consider this week's shopping and the visit to the local food bank - a Marloboro weekend?

Degrees of rotteness

How can you interpret what is the right thing or reinterpret doing the wrong thing? Whether or not Patrick Mercer MP has done the right thing remains for others to judge but what I can't get my head round are some of the crazy statements which seem to imply there is some honour in doing the wrong thing. Take for example these two statements:

If Mr Mercer has done something wrong he would act totally honourably.

Patrick Mercer has done the right thing in referring himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and resigning the whip. 

It is a strange world we live in where corporate tax avoidance is considered morally wrong even though it may be complying with the law. Yet someone perceived to be unduly influencing the legislative machinery of the land, breaking rules of the organisation is spun as doing the right thing if they resign when caught.

How big a shift is that from a child murder, who, when there is compelling evidence presented which places them beyond reasonable doubt as the killer, decides to change to a plea of guilty?

Or what about the public sector procurement manager; are they doing the right thing awarding contracts to 'mates', until their malfeasance is exposed?

Is it any wonder confidence in the democratic system is waning when you can make up definitions of what is right as you go along, or rather, when you are exposed!

Political procurement brohaha in Glasgow

Only days after celebrating some of the best in UK public procurement we are brought down to earth
with a jolt, reminding us that all is not as good as it could.

One of the benefits of local government procurement is the centrality of political leadership in the decision-making and councillors personal accountability to the electorate, through the ballot box, for their stewardship of the public purse. But there is a fine and delicate line which delineates when public and councillors should be involved in procurement, and when they shouldn't. Getting it wrong jeopardises public confidence in the system while getting it right enhances public confidence. So councillors and their advisers need to get the balance right.

Of course design contests as part of procurement invariably add an element of subjectivity to the whole process too. It's not easy to prove you've made the right decision.

Then, particularly in an age of austerity, there are questions as to whether spending £15m on a project represents what the public want or when a cheaper option, of say £500k, makes more sense?

With all those ingredients, this Glasgow case is particularly interesting and should provide lessons for all involved in public procurement.

A design contest was held for a £15m  revamp of George Square. Six designs were received along with a public protest to the effect that the work should not go ahead and a cheaper alternative option, at £500k, be pursued instead. A decision was taken to drop the project and pursue the cheaper option. The council Leader was praised for that decision although questions were asked why there hadn't been sufficient public consultation earlier. Then the RIAS complained that the Leader had compromised the process and had showed bias towards a particular design. Now the Leader, Councillor Mattheson is allegedly being investigated by the Police Major Crimes and Public Protection unit. Ironically, the Leader had previously said:  "... I'm sure whichever design team is chosen, Glaswegians will have a George Square to be proud of again".

So, at this stage, what are the lessons:

1. Define clearly the role of the public, councillors and officers in any procurement process;
2. Make effective use of scrutiny and gateway reviews in the process;
3. Carry out an appropriate needs assessment and establish what the public want;
4. Avoid costly procurement exercises for both bidders and buyers until you have completed a full options appraisal process.

N.B I've a paper published on the role of councillors in the Journal of Public Procurement - let me know if you want a copy.

PS on the 27 September George Matheson was cleared of any misconduct

The perverse outcomes of results based contracts

“That’s another fine mess you’ve got me into”, said Dave to IDS (I suspect) when today’s Daily Mail arrived through the letterbox of No.10.

The headlines suggested it had all gone horribly wrong (again) on the procurement front.  Fresh on the heels of the CX of the UK Student Loans Company promoting tax avoidance, here was a ‘Tsar’ getting an £8.6m dividend through what appears to be promoting contract avoidance.

In a nutshell the story is the lethal mix of:

• A Tsar
• The DWP Work Programme
• The Tsar is paid a dividend from her company
• The company’s only customer is the public sector
• The main customer is the Work Programme
• The company’s delivery performance has been abysmal, namely, 9-24.2% ‘back to work’ as opposed to the target of 30%
• Half the company’s subcontractors are the third sector.

It looks like the main beneficiary in getting 120,000 troubled households into work was the main shareholder of a poor performing contractor. I suggest she would be better as the Tsar of Contract Manipulation. To take Dave’s previous endorsement out of context “… I know we can count on her to help drive this campaign forward”.  It seems to me that

It takes two to tango but who leads?

The NAO have just published a report exploring the rationale behind equipping England’s 43 police forces with Blackberry’s and other mobile technology.  

Referring to the report, Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said:

"The roll-out of mobile technology to police forces was achieved against a tight timescale and at reasonable cost. Too little consideration was given, however, to the need for the devices or how they would be used. In the majority of forces, the benefits have not so far extended beyond simply allowing officers to spend more time out of the station.

"There is still the opportunity to achieve value for money, though, if more forces use the technology to improve the efficiency of their processes and make savings in their back-office activities."

I may revisit the report at a later date and explore some of the detail, but one finding immediately triggered a train of thought. The report concluded that the introduction of mobile technology by the then Government was a policy decision simply to procure and deploy devices. 

We’ve seen similar ‘mandates’ before, remember the NHS IT system when Tony Blair said ‘how fast can you get it?’ 

To buy or not to buy? Caveat emptor!

A few days ago I wrote a very tongue in cheek blog: Minister admits Public Procurement Litigation Agency overspend.  While much of that blog was inspired by the media attention given to the overspend on settling NHS claims compensation, I could perceive a threat of a new business opportunity exploiting poor public procurement practice.

Today I was startled to find a new twist  in the NHS story as it was revealed

The political procurement blame game

Last week Spendmatters exposed the lack of substance behind some of the procurement claims made by Francis Maude.  I had previously critiqued Maude's 'revolutionary speech'  and have expressed a wish that some sort of test was put in place for robnessness prior to these fanfared announcements which are really only compromising credibility.

Today's font page of theTimes headlines a must read investigation into Whitehall waste - estimated to amount to £31bn!  Needles to say procurement does not escape the spotlight, so