SERCO挑战MOD采购决定 - 一个高赌注游戏

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We are seeing a rash of supplier challenges to major government procurement exercises at the moment. One of the most interesting is Serco’s challenge to the Ministry of Defence, which recently awarded a £500 million contract to Capita to operate the Defence Fire and Rescue Service, operating 70 fire stations for the British military.

Mod说，他们“选择了Capita作为防御火灾和救援项目的获胜投标。该奖项基于一个严谨的评估程序，评估人均主张是最具经济上有利的招标，包括质量，技术优点和价值“。

But Serco is not happy and has launched a legal challenge, which is likely to focus on the detail of the procurement process, how the bids and bidders were assessed and evaluated, and whether the fundamental principles of fairness and transparency were upheld in the process.

While sensation seekers might wonder about corruption, shady dealings, secret relationships with bidders’ staff and the like, in truth this will probably come down to issues around the evaluation moderation process, risk assessments and the exact wording of the tender questions and supporting briefings.

在评估方面，Mod当然在过去使用的商业决策软件中有助于管理评估过程。它有助于评估过程，跟踪决策，记录评分并促进该过程。它还提供强大的审计跟踪。但是，就核退役机构的灾难性合同（see here）该审计小径仅展示了NDA进入的可怕混乱，最终成本为纳税人超过1亿英镑。

But we can’t see MOD repeating the juvenile and crass errors that NDA made, exacerbated by lousy legal advice. So what might Serco have to complain about? The Times says that Serco has “repeatedly asked for feedback on why it lost”, none of which has satisfied Mr Soames (Serco’s CEO). Again, it is hard to believe that MOD wouldn’t give pretty detailed feedback to the firm – but of course, you always want more if you are looking to understand why you lost.

我们在这里报道, recent legal cases have probably made it more attractive for bidders to challenge, as the courts seem more inclined to put a hold on contract award, rather than letting the contracting authority go ahead and then rely on damages to compensate the loser if it is shown that they were hard done by. So that is one factor that may be making firms more likely to challenge.

Another factor here is just how important this contract was (and is) to Serco. Soames named it recently as one of “six big elephants” – contracts that could change his firm’s fortunes. However, it is just as critical for Capita, as the firm has been criticised for its role in the outsourced MOD recruitment contract, and has lost another MOD contract for estates maintenance recently. Winning this one seemed to suggest that all was not lost for Capita in terms of MOD and central government business.

因此，两家公司都非常高的赌注，确实为MOD本身和其自身采购过程的可信度 - 并记住，顶级“商业”（采购）人现在是政府采购职能的一部分，所以内阁办公室有皮肤在这个游戏中也是如此。一切都非常有趣;我知道我会在最终结果方面把钱放在哪里，但我们将遵守兴趣。