Links I Liked [Public Procurement]

1. Big changes at the hear of the Crown Commercial Service. Sally Collier is out and Malcom Harrison takes over as interim director. What will this mean for the overall approach to procurement taken by the CCS?

2. ANTICORRP publishes three reports on implementation, monitoring and enforcement of anti-corruption legislation in Europe.

3. Spain's Supreme Court annuls 129 (!) service concessions extensions (Spanish only). Galician regional government had extended those concessions for a further 10 years from the original term and the Court found that to be illegal under EU law.

4. Why your next procurement vehicle should be a bus. Interesting take on the experience of San Francisco changing its procurement practice. The underlying programme is called Startup in Residence and looks great.

5. UK Strategic suppliers (?) sign up to the Prompt Payment Code. Even after 9 years in the UK I am always amazed at the profusion of "codes" and "best practice" soft law approaches to regulation. If the problem of prompt payment does exist, then either it is worth the political cost to enact appropriate legislation or not. Measures like the Prompt Payment Code are half way house approaches which do not solve the underlying problem and only give an appearance something is changing.