Council spending

[Mojooo]

Your thoughts on this:

Local Authority needs to buy an item. 2 suppliers have the correct item.

Supplier A is offering it for £70

Supplier B is offering it for £60

Supplier A is within the LA boundary area. They are £10 more expensive but is it worth spending the extra to keep the money within the LA area and help (in this case) a medium sized business in its own locality.

Supplier B is outside the LA area but is obviously cheaper.

Which should they use?

If you say Supplier A where is the line drawn in terms of extra expense? £20 £50 £100 £1000 ??????

[Mojooo]

12gauge said:

They'll use whoever gives the most kickbacks, probably. Thats generally how it works.

Somewhat cynical - but not the case in this instance!

[Mojooo]

Oakey said:

If B are selling for cheaper and stll able to turn a profit then maybe A is overpriced?

Perhaps B are a bigger company?

The point is, Councils are very much encouraged to promote growth in their area etc - and they do indeed spend a lot of raw money on 'initiatives'.

I wondered whether they chould/should just spend raw money on supporting businesses directly when they could - but obviously not at any cost - i.e if a business is obviously far more expensive than a competitor.

[Mojooo]

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.

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.

[Mojooo]

sd477667 said:

Tell A if they price match B the deal is theirs

You might be surprised to find that companies are not atcually falling over themselves to price match - maybe more so when they know its a public body.

anonymous said:

[redacted]

As I said in my OP, if you did favour local spending you would have to draw the line soemwhere - seems no one favours local spendign so it is probably a moot point.

[Mojooo]

Bibbs said:

Which company does my friend own, or I'm on the Board of Directors of?

Can I pay more?

I think one post that suggests Councils are bent was sufficient...

Isn't that one of the reasons wh ythey have such stringent tendering processes and approved supplier lists etc which sometimes end up costing mroe time and money than allowing a free choice. Can't have it both ways.