Quote ="Cronus"You don't still believe that claptrap do you? Neither manifesto stood up to scrutiny but Labour's was laughable. Not surprising if Diane Abbott was anywhere near it. Labour offered lots of sums on the back of a massive increase in debt at a time when national debt is already around 90% of national income. A 50% (£25 billion) increase in borrowing each year, in addition to over £250 billion to renationalise various services. That's before we include £10 billion on tuition fees, £8 billion for education, £6 billion for the NHS and £1 billion for social care. They were banking on increasing tax returns but clearly don't understand how they work and massively overestimated returns. Staggeringly, they were going to funding this in part via increased taxes on high earners...while implementing an Excessive Pay Levy to reduce the number of high earners. '" Perhaps if the top 1% wealthiest people in this country, who own 24% of its wealth, were deprived of some of it, there'd be more to go around. Thatcher sold the lie that if taxes came down, more people would be willing to pay, and not avoid tax by various means. The taxes were reduced, but they're still trying to avoid paying it, and the Tories are using the same old line again to justify cutting tax for the rich. Much wants more. https://fullfact.org/europe/uk-wealth-1-percent/

Quote ="Cronus"You don't still believe that claptrap do you? Neither manifesto stood up to scrutiny but Labour's was laughable. Not surprising if Diane Abbott was anywhere near it. Labour offered lots of sums on the back of a massive increase in debt at a time when national debt is already around 90% of national income. A 50% (£25 billion) increase in borrowing each year, in addition to over £250 billion to renationalise various services. That's before we include £10 billion on tuition fees, £8 billion for education, £6 billion for the NHS and £1 billion for social care. They were banking on increasing tax returns but clearly don't understand how they work and massively overestimated returns. Staggeringly, they were going to funding this in part via increased taxes on high earners...while implementing an Excessive Pay Levy to reduce the number of high earners. '" Perhaps if the top 1% wealthiest people in this country, who own 24% of its wealth, were deprived of some of it, there'd be more to go around. Thatcher sold the lie that if taxes came down, more people would be willing to pay, and not avoid tax by various means. The taxes were reduced, but they're still trying to avoid paying it, and the Tories are using the same old line again to justify cutting tax for the rich. Much wants more. https://fullfact.org/europe/uk-wealth-1-percent/

I wonder what it is about Diane Abbott that has right wingers of the belief that she's such an easy target...?

Anyhow, by way of demonstrating the double standards on display in this regard - the hapless white middle-aged man Chris Grayling said during an interview on national TV yesterday, that their forced adoption of one of Labour's best policies, the nationalisation of train services, was because, and I quote "all involved got their sums wrong." Where is the derision of the right - who appear by their attacks on Diane Abbott to place great stock in being good at sums?

A passing comment in an interview in which Grayling clearly states Stagecoach got their sums wrong (as he has said repeatedly elsewhere) and submitted a non-viable (in hindsight) bid, is nothing like the bumbling, mumbling, embarrassing mess Diane Abbott, who gets worse every time she speaks.

Procurement on this scale is a highly complex process and there's always an element of trust in any bid, regardless of due diligence and risk checks. In that context, yes the DoT 'got their sums wrong', but a tender that doesn't deliver in hindsight is a fairly common business issue, and a long way from one of Diane Abbott's comedy skits.

I'll deride Abbott all day long. She's anti-UK, highly racist, a hypocrite and a terrorist sympathiser. She's failed to declare earnings, claimed outrageous expenses and she's only in her position thanks to having previously tickled Jeremy's pleasure. Labour supporters should be horrified she's one of your leaders. She's doing a fine job keeping the Tories in power.

Aah look, majorhound with the race card again.

No there isn't.

Offer
Acceptance
Intention
Consideration
Capacity

It's up to the purchaser to satisfy themselves of the integrity of the bid.

Much of which is based on data, statements, projections, legalese, SLAs and pricing provided by the bidder.

How, pray tell, would the purchaser be able to proceed without trusting the information they are given? There are of course (limited) checks and balances to confirm the substance of the bid, but ultimately the bidder is the sole source of the majority of the information.

I've been on both ends of enough tenders to know how it works.

The first part of your post is correct.

However, regarding "the purchaser to satisfy themselves of the integrity of the bid.", I dont believe this is always the caes and there are circumstances where, if the information given in any tender is proven to be incorrect, there will be a get out clause for any supplier or, as usually happens, they carry on until the end of the tender period and use the experience to guide them in future deals with whichever company.has "wronged" them.
There can also be occasions when "fixed" pricing can be altered during the period of supply.

I start from the basis of not trusting a word a bidder tells me. It is up to me to satisfy myself that key information is true. Perhaps my industry is even more dishonest than normal. That's the reason why lawyers make a fortune out of contracts & why procurement legislation is in place.

Given the track record (geddit) of the previous private operators on the East Coast Mainline, I'd have thought that the DofT would have gone through the bid with a fine toothed comb. However, the fact that they wanted to get through before possibly losing an election may have affected their judgement.
After all the previous public operator was producing a profit for the taxpayer. Bigotry and dogmatism were behind the awarding of this franchise. So no wonder they cocked up so badly.

Contractually & legally you are correct. However my job is to identify upfront the lies & dishonesty in a bid & subsequent contract. If I just sat here & said "Don't worry boss, it might be 6 months late & £1m over budget, we've got a thousand students with nowhere to live & nowhere to study, but I've just sussed they lied in their bid so we have grounds for breach of contract" I wouldn't last long. This is the industry & business that gave you Grenfell.

That's all very nice and you are quite right to be as thorough as possible, but ultimately at some point you have to make a decision based on data and information provided by your bidder - some of which you will have no way of independently verifying.

Unless, of course, in your line of work EVERYTHING is on public record and can be disclosed without fear of confidentiality, compliance, antitrust and data protection liabilities. Which would be very unlikely.

Under EU & UK public procurement legislation every single word of communication between bidders has to be retained. A rejection of a bid or objection to an award can be raised by any bidder which will result in full scrutiny of the entire process. Similarly, external funding bodies have audit processes in place to ensure the full procurement process was open & transparent. I am not allowed to have off the record conversations with bidders, it all has to be communicated via a procurement portal & all bidders be informed of answers to any questions raised by other bidders.

And in the real world

In the real world - I am subject to exactly the same rules tigertot has described; that's how procurement with the NHS and LA's works, and despite my best efforts, there is no way around it.

And which world would that be? The one where tenders are accepted with a nod and a wink, an extra brown envelope, and the furious deleting of email exchanges? Tigertot's description of the tender process is exactly how it works where I work, and as bren2k has pointed out, there is no way around it. We actually employ a person dedicated to ensuring everything is done to the letter.

Indeed. I was involved in an NHS procurement recently that jumped through all those hoops.

This is so dull.



Yes, that is all true. No-one is denying legislation exists.

But - as tigertot doesn't seem to understand - any bid you receive will contain data, information, projections, etc, that have been compiled by the bidder based on their own internal data, information, projections, etc - and intended margins/yield - that you simply cannot verify independently and the bidder may choose to protect. You have to trust it is true and correct. Then, at some point you need to look at your bids having carried out all your checks and adhered to all the processes and regulations, you make a decision. There is always an element of trust that everything you're basing your decision on is true and correct.

Stagecoach (and other transport providers, to be fair), for example, failed to foresee a vast increase in home-working, which has hit their passenger number projections in a big way. They may have submitted an honest and open bid, but in hindsight they got at least one part of it wrong. Whoever accepted that bid at the DoT may have carried out due diligence to the n'th degree, but it doesn't change the fact the sums turned out to be wrong.

What excuse is there for GNER & National Express, they took the franchise on when numbers were booming?
Funny really this government says it is against state ownership of our railways, but seems to have no problem with SNCF, Deutsch Bahn, and NS subsidising their own systems with profits from ours.

Just the one

That's the risk of capitalism. If the gamble works the return is profit. If it fails you are supposed to pay the price. But those responsible in major projects, as with the financial collapse, rarely do. It's the poor suckers further down the line who do.

I think that's the big scandal here - under the current regime, it seems that these huge companies are quite happy to reap the rewards, but not to take on the risk.

In the real world you would just put the company into liquidation - nobody can realistically be expected to keep putting good money after bad without a vision of the future that says the money is recoverable.

It is a problem of choosing the lowest bid - seldom does it offer real value for money as the saying goes "if it looks too good it probably is". The person assessing the bids is only able to assess data provided to them by the bidder - if the bidder chooses not to disclose then there is very little the assessor can do.

that's why you would be stupid to accept just the lowest bid, rather than best value, unless you were buying identical goods. And there's lots you can do.

Anyhow.................

Who did Amber in?

Don't get me wrong, I find the thread drifts interesting at times, especially regarding bidding processes.

In this respect, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Carillion, or is that too toxic for a slightly quirky message board?

It happens all the time - it usually the reason for the government placing work overseas - the latest being the passport contract.