BBC Sounds

 Some very interesting podcasts on BBC Sounds for those who like them.

I really enjoyed At your own Peril by Prof Lucy Easthorpe, which is about risk - a subject I whitter on about on my courses a lot, as I think it is greatly misunderstood in procurement.  Or commonly, not even thought about at all.

Another is Derailed: The story of HS2.  As I was saying just the other day, "fail to plan, plan to fail".  A real shame and embarrassment for our country.

And of course the Covid Enquiry podcast - which has got about 50 episodes but  the ones of interest to most of us are the PPE procurement and VIP lane episodes.

As someone who lived through Peter Sutcliffe's terrible crimes (the last of which Jacqui Hill from my student flats) I was also interested in Wearside Jack, which is about the hoaxer who distracted police efforts and was eventually brought to justice years later.

Another Leeds connection is Prof Steve Haake (now Sheffield Hallam University) who is a guest on The Infinite Monkey Cage.  Which also leads me back to my Physics past with 13 Seconds to the Moon and the Space Shuttle.

And of course all covered by the BBC license fee.

Now if I only had the time to listen to more.  (walking the dog is such a good excuse).

Procurex North Manchester 26th February 2015

It all seems to be Manchester this month.  Which suits me - always great to go back.
As mentioned in an earlier blog I shall be taking part in Procurex North at Manchester Central on Thursday 26th February 2015.  For those who don't recognise the location, it is the conference centre formerly known as GMex, where I once saw Prince - back when he was "the artist formally known as Prince".  Parking underneath GMex, sorry Manchester Central, tram  stop Deansgate-Castlefield, (formerly known as GMex) or St. Peter's Square (still called that as far as I know)

I shall be running the Supplier Training Zone (details here) looking at the new EU procurement regulations which are coming in (literally) any day now, sustainability and selection criteria. 

There will also be a Buyer's training zone, an E-enablement zone (where I hope to be able to sneak in to hear the latest about procurement cards), and keynote speeches from Sir Howard Bernstein (Chief Exec of Manchester City Council, and one of the architects of the great development of Manchester over the past 20 years),  Jim Hemmington (head of procurement at the BBC - don't forget to ask questions about Salford), Sally Collier (Chief Exec of the Crown Commercial Service) and several other speakers.
Plus the usual array of exhibition stands.

Always a great event - hope to see you there.

The West Coast Mainline Debacle

The shambles over the awarding of the West Coast Mainline contract is the big public sector procurement story of the moment.

The story is being covered in a number of places - Peter Smith at Spend Matters has covered it a number of times, including providing links to the original tender (if you are interested enough).  Robert Peston over at the BBC has of course also commented.

Rather than rehash entirely, I will just make a few points.  Peter Smith has pointed out that there are 3 possibilities - first that the process was flawed, secondly that the correct process was not followed correctly, and finally that something changed somewhere through the process.  The current line is that it is the first problem, and that the fault lies with the civil servants who set up process.  Some of them are disputing that.

I think the first thing to say is that the problem in many people's eyes was the result, regardless of the process.  If the process had been flawed but awarded it to Virgin there would not have been this fuss.  People I know who use the service are happy with Virgin and concerned about changin - even if First are promising a better service.  We all know that people are very reluctant about change - even for the better (see Machiavelli).  This allowed Richard Branson to create the fuss which lead to the review which got us to the current situation.  I do not believe First group would have been able to achieve that.

If it is the wrong process, then we have to understand why.  There are suggestions that it was wrong assumptions about Risk - which is part of the process, not how it was applied.  It is a very long contract (15 years) and all assumptions about what will happen over the length of the contract are speculation ("It's difficult to make predictions - especially about the future" - Yogi Berra).  What will the oil price be in 2027? Which party will be in power?  Will we have superconducting electricity distribution?  Will we have self driving cars?  All of these could have impacts on both demand and delivery of train services.  So, it is tricky.

As to why we should compensate bidders for the cock up in the process - we want them to bid again in future, and the fault was ours (the public sector) not theirs.  EU procurement law allows them the potential recovery of the damage to their company resulting from the mistake, so they are due compensation.  The costs will in any case in some way be charged to the public purse - through higher fees if not a direct payment.

This one is going to rumble on and on.  Sadly there is a great risk it will be a political football rather than a learning opportunity. 

The one lesson I would like the government to take from this is that procurement is important, and needs to be supported to ensure value for money and efficiency.  It is not just a cost.

Robert Peston's blog at the BBC is here.
Spend Matters latest post on the matter is here

BTW the illustration is not a Virgin train but an old Russian train iirc.

Masters of Money

There is a great series being shown on BBC Two on Monday nights - Masters of Money, presented by BBC Economics editor Stephanie Flanders.  See here for a link to the programme on iplayer.

These days it is useful for all of us to know a little bit about economic theory, to help us to decide which approach is most likely to be followed by politicians, and which appoach is most likely to work.  Sadly these are not always the same (whichever party is in power).

This is the sort of stuff that the BBC can point at when justifying the license fee - bringing knowledge to the masses.

Flexible Printed Electronics

I have wittered on for the past couple of years about the exciting prospect of flexible printed electronics as a result of working for PETEC, part of CPI in the North East of England.  What this basically means is that surfaces all around us can become video displays or solar cells.
The BBC technology programme Click has just run a section on this as developed by Plastic Logic as part of their Paperless special.  You can see it here. on iplayer.  It might not be up for long, and might not be accessible outside the UK.  The relevant bit starts about 9:32 into the programme.

File on 4 - a Bridge too far

BBC Radio 4 File on 4 have a programme about European Public Procurement available on Iplayer from Tuesday night (20th March 2012), repeated on Sunday 25th March 2012.  Should be interesting.  Click http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01dhs17 to go to the site.

Also available as a blog on I-tunes

CrossRail - fall out from the Bombardier/Siemens decision

The Prime Minister has announced (rather quietly I thought) that there will be no review of the decision to award the Thameslink to Siemens rather than Bombardier.  This is not surprising as the alternatives were going to be extremely unpleasant - at best we could find a valid reason to annul the competition, and restart the process with the award (hopefully) coming to a different company.  At worst the UK gets a hefty fine from the European Union and sued by Siemens.  In the middle the government looks powerless to act.

The fallout continues though, and in the link here it is reported that Alstrom have withdrawn from the process to supply trains to the CrossRail project.  Now if you have not been following these projects, it should be pointed out that CrossRail and ThamesLink are major projects - far larger and more expensive than the Olympics, but with a much lower public profile.  Both should make a major contribution to travel in London and the South East. 

The government has announced that it delay the tend for the trains by a few months (from late 2011 to early 2012)  and will review the procurement process.  The shortlisted companies are Siemens, Bombardier, Hitachi and Ferrocarrilles.  Alstrom have withdrawn from the bidding process.

The question is what can the government achieve?  Although they blame the previous administration for the rules, in reality all that is happening is that the process is following EU procurement rules.  Transport Secretary Philip Hammond says he wants to change the rules so that "UK companies compete on an equal footing with Continental competitors".  Of course that is already happening, or we would be able to lodge a case with the EU for illegal support, non-competitive behaviour, cross subsidies or something similar.  If we have evidence that it is not happening, then what are we doing using the EU legal system to correct the problem.

What the minister means, and most of us would be behind him on this, is that he wants the work to go to a British company.  In practice this means Canadian company Bombardier, rather than German company Siemens.  The withdrawal of Alstrom may be a sign that they perceive the UK government to be "rigging" the process so that Bombardier wins. 

Which then leads us to ackward consequences.  If Bombardier do win, will people think it is a political fix?  Will Bombardier actually have the best bid?  Or will we be paying a higher price for lower quality to keep jobs in Britain?  And will the EU approve it?  Will it actually help Bombardier in the long term if they can only win business that is "sorted" for them?
If Siemens, or one of the other bidders win, what will that mean for the government's rhetoric?

It is politically unpopular, but the government could take the tack of pointing out that we want fair competition across Europe, and the way to do that is not to impose barriers but to ensure other countries follow the due process.  If we give preference to national companies, how can we complain about other countries doing the same?  And where does the balance lie between encouraging business competition and nurturing developing or weak business sectors?  And having given a lead that national governments can ensure business goes to national companies, what will the impact be on UK exports?

The government is encouraging British business to have an input on their submissions on proposed changes to EU procurement legislation, and I encourage companies to have their say.  However realistically the choice for the UK government is to agree to EU procurement policy, and the consequences of that single market, or to withdraw from the EU.  There is a lot of support for withdrawal in both the country and the government (though personally I do not agree) and it is possibly the time to have that debate about the benefits (advantages) and obligations (disadvantages) of being in the European Union.

British Manufacturing

Evan Davis is making a very interesting series for the BBC, called Made in Britain.
It is often said that British manufacturing can no longer compete with the rest of the world, and that in Britain we do not make anything anymore. This series is showing how completely wrong (and self defeating) that view is.
The first and Second programmes can be accessed here - the third is about services.

A very brief and selective extract is to make the point that Britain is the seventh largest manufacturer in the world. That is hardly "does not make anything". If we accept that the USA and China are numbers one and two, and that Germany and Japan are three and four (at least for the moment) then the best we could hope to be if fifth. Being seventh shows that we are a bit behind where we would like to be - not hopeless. It is like complaining that because as Aston Villa we are not in the Champions League we cannot play football - not true (if we leave the views of Birmingham City fans out of this).

The thing is that once you start to believe this self defeating mantra it becomes self-fulfilling. I have made this point about the UK chemicals industry until people are sick of hearing it. The Chemicals industry is the UK's second largest export - but industry people keep saying it is dead, in terminal decline, not like the old days etc. etc. Of course their business is doing fine, in fact it is growing and they are expanding - but the industry is over, we can't compete..... They practically all say it and end up talking themselves into a pessimistic funk. Heaven help us if the government takes this gloomy myth as reality and acts on it.

One thing British industry needs is to stop running itself down. It is big, successful and there is room for improvement. But it is not over. The people who repeat this ad nauseum have an agenda that Britain is a busted flush. It is not. 7th out of 200 nations is grounds for neither giving up nor complacency.

I look forward to working with more successful British manufacturers in the decades to come.