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There’s a lot of hearsay and half-truth here. I don’t know where Willie Watt gets his £130k threshold figure from – more like £156k for service (consultancy) contracts. I can’t believe any client needs to spend £70k to assess something of this value, and the costs of Pre Qualification (PQQs) seem to be confused with those of Tenders. Either way, the rants about ‘ojeus’ must refer to the Public Contract Regulations with their purpose of opening up public procurement to fair and transparent competition. Surely we can’t complain about that, or do we want the good old days of councils’ everlasting ‘approved lists’ which excluded opportunities for any newcomers, large or small? The problem isn’t the Public Procurement Regs or ‘ojeus’; the problem is how these perfectly fine principles are implemented by public sector clients. For example, there’s nothing that says you should have 100 PQQ questions and it shouldn’t cost £70k to assess them. The amount of information asked for is purely for the contracting body to decide, so it’s public sector clients who need to streamline their own procedures. Incidentally, why does no one complain about cosy (restrictive) procurement arrangements of private clients?
Last but not least, the NHF says its members spend £30m a year on ‘procurement’, but with 1,200 members that’s only £25k each so not very much. How much do they spend on Directors’ salaries? And are they really saying they don’t need to spend anything on procuring contracts?