According to an article in the Daily Telegraph, the government misses many opportunities because of the way it conducts tenders. Smaller organisations who have innovative ideas to optimise costs and efficiency, but no specific public sector experience stand little chance of success.
The Telegraph quoted the experience of a small web development company called Fubra. They employ 25 people and identified the potential for to make a 97% saving on the annual £4.7 million hosting bill for the Businesslink.gov.uk website.
They tried to pitch this idea directly to HM Revenues and Customs but they were rebuffed because its tendering rules require companies to have prior experience of working for the public sector.
Whilst there are very good reasons to have a tendering process, Fubra and other SME’s think the government could do much more to embrace new ideas.