Tender writing experts help to redress the balance

Last year there was a lot of news hype around the subject of our public sector procurement being biased against domestic firms. Procurement departments following the EU procurement rules to the letter has meant that 3% of UK public procurement went to overseas companies compared to 1.9% in Germany and 1.5% in France. This has led to the best part of £1bn being lost to the EU which could have been reinvested into our economy by local companies being selected over foreign tenderers. It seems that the public sector’s efforts to follow the EU’s procurement rules have been successful to the point where we are not protecting ourselves properly from foreign competition.

Economists have always been against protecting domestic and infant industries on an international scale, as it breeds inefficiency, sheltering them from competition through subsidies and taxes. However, in our current economic situation, we need to do all we can to foster growth. At the end of last year a £1.4bn Thameslink contract for the build and supply of 1,200 train carriages was awarded to the German company, Siemens. This contract award was given in the wake of all the press about losing business to EU based companies. The only other company to tender towards this contract is Britain’s ‘last train maker’ Bombardier which has had to lay off 1,400 people from their 3,000 strong workforce in response to the contract being awarded elsewhere. It is also feared that a possible further 10,000 jobs may be lost through the supply chain due to this contract loss. The deal has fortunately been put up for review.

It seems the contract was awarded to Siemens as it was deemed the most value for money for our taxpayers, but looking at the devastating knock on effects of having Bombardier lose this contract, it is difficult to see where this additional value for money is. Apart from in the raw cost to the government, the socioeconomic factors alone make this decision a no-brainer. If it is found that there has been no collusion between Siemens and our government during the invitation to tender stage and that both companies competed fairly for this contract then they may have no choice but to award it to Siemens.

At Executive Compass we specialise in bid and tender writing. We know exactly what the contracting authority is looking for in your responses and we are able to write the winning words for you. If you have an important contract that you cannot afford to lose then why not utilise a bid management consultancy like us? We are the only Bid & Tender Management Consultancy in the UK to have received an accreditation of ISO9001:2008 against the quality of work we produce, including PQQ and tender completion, bid management and training.
If we work with you and your organisation in tendering towards a public sector contract and you still lose out to foreign competition, then there really is a problem with our public sector procurement process!