Links I Liked [Public Procurement]

1. Greece to exclude German firms from public procurement?

Apparently Greece wants to kick out Siemens, Reihnmethall and Airbus from (defence?) public procurement. Bearing in mind how the submarine deal ended there...

2. Public Contracts Regulations 2015 arrive

3. Random effects of scoring price in a tender evaluation

Michael Bowsher explains the pitfalls of using relative weightings when assessing price in tender evaluations. I am not an expert in tender evaluation but I have been making similar comments to contracting authorities since Jan Telgen did a seminar on the topic during my Ph.D circa 2009.

4. Crown Commercial Service customer update: February 2015

Some nice stats, fresh from the horse's mouth.

5. Heuristics in public procurement decision making

Albert analysed in brief a seemingly interesting paper about heuristics on how public procurement decisions are made. I would add that it feels like madness to allow the same people involved in scoring companies during qualification to score bids during tender stage. For the same reasons anonymous marking is so important in academia, tenders should be analysed separately (and preferably, anonymously) to avoid bias.

6. Office of Government Procurement Tender Advisory Service (Ireland)

Apparently Ireland is following in the footsteps of Central Government and introducing its own version of a discreet complaints service. It makes sense to diffuse as many situations as possible outside the courts, but my preferred option is still a proper Procurement Ombudsman a la Canada.