Links
1. New podcast available, this time with Mihaly Fazekas from the University of Cambridge. Great talk about corruption in public procurement and new strategies on how to detect it. 2. Albert wrote an excellent post on the risks of central contracts registries. Sitting on the other sited of the argument
Public Procurement
Well, in Slovakia we have seen (via Transparency International) that around 10% of the population goes into the procurement portal to check what is being purchased by whom and from what suppliers. In Portugal numbers are probably not as high, although every now and again the local press decides to
Public Procurement
I am sometimes* surprised at the interpretation(s) given to some sentences/decisions of the Court of Justice. Lianakis (C‑532/06) is one of those. For me its meaning has always been quite clear: the contracting authority is precluded from analysing past experience at the tender stage if unconnected
Links
1. Italian MOD moves from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. Very interesting move, particularly taking into account we are talking about a Ministry of Defense. After a few (maybe one) success story with Munich, LibreOffice has not really been able to get a foothold in the public sector. 2. Banks love
Public Procurement
It appears the previous Government created a unit/department/state owned company within the Ministry of Justice called Just Solutions International to provide advice or (allegedly) run prisons in other countries, namely Saudi Arabia. I will leave to one side the irony of this commercial operation arising from a Government
Legal
1. Wither LPC? Apparently the Legal Practice Course is on its last legs. Not surprising and frankly in my view very overdue. When former students tell me that the level of detail is similar to what was achieved in one of my modules, that indicates me there is no real
Public Procurement
Widespread problems persist in the way public authorities across the EU contract out work, according to a new report from the European Court of Auditors. Even though the European Commission and the Member States have started to address the problem, there is still a long way to go, say the
Public Procurement
Since 2010 I have co-organised 6 conferences (4 in procurement - Procurement Week) and took part in 12 or 14 as a speaker. By and large my experience in both sides of the table has been positive and I tend to have a lot of respect and tolerance for conference
Public Procurement
I mentioned yesterday a plan by the UK Government for introducing social considerations under the guise of supporting apprenticeships through mandatory apprenticeship programmes in some larger contracts. The actual policy note is out (Action Note 14/15 27 August 2015) and applies to all contracts over £10M lasting for longer
UK
1. Wales will have its own regulatory powers in public procurement. I do not know how this will pan out since the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 cover Welsh contracting authorities for the most part. Maybe their powers will be restricted to regulate the areas that are not already regulated by
Public Procurement
I have had this opinion for a number of years. As we move to procurement systems where new features target "advanced" users (innovation partnership & competitive procedure with negotiation, I am looking at you) we forget how much low hanging fruit still exists in public procurement waiting to
Links
Ah...the dreaded post-vacation list of links. There are way too many important topics to cover on a single post, so I will need to revisit my notes over the next few days. 1. FIDE 2014 conference outputs are now available in open access. The procurement publication bit in all