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Noitatlusnoc

We are all conversant with the concept of the invitation to tender (ITT). The customer documents his requirements and issues the specification to prospective suppliers, inviting them to tender for the business. The interested suppliers, if any, submit proposals and, one way or another, the winners are decided.

This venerable institution has now been the subject of revolutionary change.

The Financial Times reported in August 2007 that the Identity & Passport Service (IPS) would start to award contracts for the ID cards scheme next spring, i.e. now. Instead, IPS have issued a consultation document, seeking the public’s views on “what kind of information about the Scheme may be needed by organisations that might want to take part in delivering the Scheme”.

We are all conversant with the concept of the public consultation. The government department in question describes its proposals in detail, the public submit their thoughts and, one way or another, the government department does what it was going to do in the first place.

This venerable institution also, has been the subject of revolutionary change – the IPS consultation document seeks views on “what kind of information about the Scheme the public may need”.

Not only are the public expected to write IPS’s ITTs for them but, under the new dispensation, the public also have to decide for them what IPS are trying to achieve.

Published by David Moss on 30/04/08 at 11:47am

Comments

1. WIBBI they decided what the ID card scheme was for before going any further....

   Reply by Chris R  on  04/30/08  at  2:10 pm

2. "the public also have to decide for them what IPS are trying to achieve”

   There are plenty of people out there who will take the attitude that they are not going to provide, for free, what management consultants have been charging the government for, so…

   WIBBI IPS held a proper competition for ideas and if your idea gets included in the scheme then you get a reward equvalent to (let’s say) one year’s cost to IPS of a management consultant (say around 250K or so).

   I’ve already asserted the moral right of ownership over the idea of charging the public for vanity ID numbers, so I’m in line already

   Reply by Dave Birch  on  05/01/08  at  10:53 am

3. Dave Birch:

   “WIBBI IPS held a proper competition for ideas and if your idea gets included in the scheme then you get a reward equvalent to (let’s say) one year’s cost to IPS of a management consultant (say around 250K or so).”

   For goodness sake, Dave, if I may – think big.

   1. IPS have achieved nothing.
   2. They have achieved that at some cost, say £50m a year.
   3. We live in an age of outsourcing.

   Put those together, and what do you get?

   You and I, say, form a consortium and bid for IPS’s work. We promise to achieve nothing more cheaply than IPS.

   The bid has to be credible – no unrealistically low numbers – and the contract has to account for the possibility that it may be harder to achieve nothing than it looks.

   We get the contract at maybe £42m a year and then make the unforeseeable discovery that we need huge quantities of external consultancy, which can only be provided by Business Consultancy Services Ltd and Consult Hyperion, to maintain the rate of failure the Home Office require.

   Costs mysteriously mount, hitting £93m a year before the Public Accounts Committee notice, at which point KPMG are brought in to prove beyond peradventure that if you use a discount rate/cost of funds of 26% we are actually cheaper than IPS.

   Deal?

   Reply by David Moss  on  05/01/08  at  12:13 pm

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