It is enough to make your blood boil - £22.51 for a light bulb, procured by the MOD through their preferred supplier after an exhaustive evaluation and selection process. The same process that is the foundation stone of all procurement by the public sector. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12643966
It raises a few questions.
Is the process so flawed that our hard earned taxes are being squandered in epic quantity across the board by those faceless bureaucrats (with gold plated pensions and bullet proof jobs) that make the final decision? The answer is yes.
Are those same bureaucrats in the MoD responsible for the light bulbs (plus a few Nimrods, army radio’s that don’t work, weapons unsuitable for desert warfare and a number of Apache helicopters that can’t fly – not forgetting aircraft carriers with no aircraft and a £38billion budget overspend) being held to account? Why don’t we hear of the people responsible being summarily dismissed for total incompetence? The answer is probably because they still have their bullet proof jobs and gold plated pensions.
And what happened to the supplier that has taken advantage of the total incompetence of the public sector procurement process to rip off every tax payer in this country? Have they had their contract terminated and been barred from public sector supply for at least 5 years (a reasonable term for theft!). The answer is no because everyone knows it is happening everywhere all the time.
So who is responsible? Theoretically, it is the government –not for the waste itself, but for perpetuating it by failing to take full retribution on the perpetrators and place a marker that will be understood by bureaucrats and suppliers alike. Cross this line and you are out.
So, the final question. How confident are you that wasting money by paying too much is not taking place in the private sector. The answer depends on whether you can identify which individual in the organisation is responsible for overseeing corporate spend. If the answer is no one (or a list of budget holders), perhaps you should consider changing that?
Posted: 07/03/2011 10:36:01
by
Neil Robertson, CEO Compleat Software
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