Council spending
Discussion
hidetheelephants said:
This; the annual "s
t, we've got money left over; if we don't spend it 'they' will take it away" farce that occurs at the end of every bloody financial year in pretty much every state-funded organisation. Why has this never been stopped?
Because its not as true as most people appear to believe.t, we've got money left over; if we don't spend it 'they' will take it away" farce that occurs at the end of every bloody financial year in pretty much every state-funded organisation. Why has this never been stopped?Sometimes even people IN the Dept will think its because its year-end etc etc that its being spent when quite often the expenditure was always planned but got delayed for one reason or another.
Countdown said:
Strange - for most big-value contracts you can get suppliers from the OGC website. Alternatively there are several procurement consortiums who will give you a list of suppliers. It would be a very lazy procurement department which would ask a supplier for a list of competitors.
What is it you provide?
loosely we provide site engineering information, we were the only ones suppplying it so I guess added to the problem.What is it you provide?
southendpier said:
loosely we provide site engineering information, we were the only ones suppplying it so I guess added to the problem.
Fair enough. Hard to say how specialised your service is (and therefore how hard it would be to get alternative quotes). However in my experience LA Standing Orders have "Chief exec waivers" - in certain circumstances the Chief Exec or Director can waive the requirements of Standing Orders/Standing Financial Instructions.One such cicrumstance would be the requirement to obtain competitive quotes where there are no competitors available. This would have been the correct path for the procurement team to follow.
Mojooo said:
Du1point8 said:
You sound like you would have voted bombardier for the trains, even though they can't cope with the UK order and the non UK company that got the contact have a reputation for developing better trains and keep to deadlines with deliverables and cost.
Supporting the UK despite it not being what the customer actually wants.
Well I couldn;t say for sure as I don't know the ins and outs but on the sounds of it is a different question altogether.Supporting the UK despite it not being what the customer actually wants.
Clearly if you are tendering for multi thousand pound contracts you go for value/quality but when we are talking small sums for exactly the same product then there might be some value in keeping spending within a local area.
I suppose the bottom line is that it is hard to quantify any benefit to the local business/area whereas its very easy to quantify the spending differences.
Countdown said:
Dr Gonzo said:
There would be a presumption for supplier B, unless there was evidence that cheapest is not always best.
Although Councils seek to promote business on their patch, it's voters' dosh they are spending, and politicians won't be keen on pricey contracts that risk losing service confidence or which might lead to raising Council Tax - which could well stuff-up their chances of re-election.
It's local voters' dosh they are spending.Although Councils seek to promote business on their patch, it's voters' dosh they are spending, and politicians won't be keen on pricey contracts that risk losing service confidence or which might lead to raising Council Tax - which could well stuff-up their chances of re-election.
Johnnytheboy said:
Countdown said:
It's local voters' dosh they are spending.
Not all of it is. Huge amounts of council cash comes from central govt.ETA Funding from Central Govt forms only a small part of LA spending.
Countdown said:
Because its not as true as most people appear to believe.
Sometimes even people IN the Dept will think its because its year-end etc etc that its being spent when quite often the expenditure was always planned but got delayed for one reason or another.
absolute and utter boll@cks.... I have personally witnessed 1st hand and asked been to quote for totally unnecessary work which had to have invoices in within 1 week as it was the end of their end of year - was even told how much money they had left to "get rid of" !! Sometimes even people IN the Dept will think its because its year-end etc etc that its being spent when quite often the expenditure was always planned but got delayed for one reason or another.
Also know this has happened in 3 of the local council authorities in at least 1 or 2 departments each - so thats widespread enough for me thanks.
Edited by hedgefinder on Tuesday 13th March 18:11
hedgefinder said:
Countdown said:
Because its not as true as most people appear to believe.
Sometimes even people IN the Dept will think its because its year-end etc etc that its being spent when quite often the expenditure was always planned but got delayed for one reason or another.
absolute and utter boll@cks.... I have personally witnessed 1st hand and asked been to quote for totally unnecessary work which had to have invoices in within 1 week as it was the end of their end of year - was even told how much money they had left to "get rid of" !! Sometimes even people IN the Dept will think its because its year-end etc etc that its being spent when quite often the expenditure was always planned but got delayed for one reason or another.
Also know this has happened in 3 of the local council authorities in at least 1 or 2 departments each - so thats widespread enough for me thanks.
Edited by hedgefinder on Tuesday 13th March 18:11
Because budget holders are stupid enough to openly state to various Contractors "Please carry out this work which isn't needed, we just need to get rid of the money". that's never going to bite them in the arse.
By the way invoice date is irrelevant for financial year end purposes - its the date the goods/services are provided.
miniman said:
Countdown said:
There are benefits to keeping things local.
As a country, we rather gave up on that idea decades ago, didn't we? As I said above I don't think localism is necessarily a bad thing. Hopefully it might encourage a sense of community/responsibility/pride.
You never know
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