WRITTEN ON February 22nd, 2006 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Government Procurement

Yesterday I finally heard one tale of woe too many about government procurement and how it can lead to outcomes that are less than ideal. So in the small hours I sent out the following email:

One or two people have now wound me up to breaking point with their frustrations about government procurement processes. We may look at this next in Ideal Government. What I ask, if you have strong feelings on this issue, is that you

a) post up or email me any such anecdotes, specific or anonymised. I mean situations where government procurement processes or Ts&Cs deliver anything other than best value and quality of service. Please state whether this is attributable to you or merely to “a well-informed source” (or similar) in which case I guarantee your anonymity.

b) Please append a suggestion to the effect “wouldnt it be better it…” (wibbi)

c) Please ask three other people to do the same. Just forward them this email.

Let’s collect these “Gripes with Wibbies” at Ideal Government under a new “Government procurement” heading. This is intended to be constructive feedback, supportive of any trade-association initiative but not a substitute for it. If we start to learn a lot I’ll offer to present the results as a “critical friend” to OGC, if they’re interested. If we get good feedback, they should be.

Let’s all refuse to listen to any griping about government procurement processes ever again from anyone who does not contribute to this. Looking forward to your replies – thank you!

I sense there’s a lot of pent-up rustration out there. Good procurement is prerequisite for good e-enabled government (if you need to buy anything in the first, place, that is). Let’s turn that frustration into Wibbies and if we get anything like as useful a conversation as we had on Transformational Gov I’ll offer to present findings back to someone like John Oughton.