Procurement is complex, more cumbersome than needed, but not inane.

CityMapper which ran a on-demand bus service in London for a while had this to say about public procurement:

"It’s hard for the public sector to buy good software

Government entities need to utilise complex and bureaucratic procurement systems. These are won by companies with project managers and sales persons who are willing to deal with inane procurement processes, rather than product or technology companies that have the capability to do the best job."

It is true that there is plenty of scope for improvement on public procurement practices (transaction and opportunity costs I'm looking at you) and that economic operators without a track record have the deck stacked against them. But a system less transparent or 'inane' would be even worse for a small company to deal with. Such small company would not even know an opportunity exists and if it did, why should the public buyer listen to you when it can simply do a deal with the IBM of that particular field?

In fact that what already happens for contracts below EU-thresholds. There are barely any procurement rules and contracting authorities mostly do as they please (if they prefer to jack up the transaction costs, that is their problem - not that they need to follow "complex and bureaucratic systems"). Also, EU procurement rules on utilities (like transport) are a lot more flexible than people give them credit for.

Less transparency in a procurement system increases the risk of corruption too.

How would that be a less 'inane' system?

PS: There are plenty of cities in the UK where transport systems are open to competition (Nottingham is a good example) and do not rely on public procurement at all, but I digress.

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