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The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

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Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#71

Post by tardedmeme »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #30
Closi wrote: post #7

Their medium value purchase system is a waste of time too - I work for a small business that does government contracts and you have to pay the government just for the pleasure of bidding for contracts. Then every bid has it's own unique weird things, where often you are told who you are bidding against and sometimes even how much the government wants to pay! The scorecards are often weird, will do things like ask you…

I had an invitation to bid on a government contract that needed local diversity certifications that would cost a bunch of money just to apply. They also had a scale down provision to basically nothing so even if we won there is no guarantee that the contract would cover the cost of certifications. We have list pricing so they wanted us to jump through these hoops and still give them the standard rate. We passed, but…

Now you know why government contracts are so expensive. They have to be, to cover the costs of dealing with the government.

It's not wrong to over-quote a shitty customer by an amount that'd make you willing to deal with their shittiness. That's totally fine on your part actually, since either they take the bid and you make money, or they don't and you don't have to deal with them.

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#72

Post by ksec »

copium wrote: post #48

I work in UK Government and the problem is that procurement depts are so afraid of awarding tenders to dodgy suppliers they add so many layers of bureaucracy that it prevents local or more innovative contractors. The rules are much more flexible for low value tenders Please realise there are many civil servants and local government officers that realise the system is overly bureaucratic and are encouraging procuremen…

I don't think it will change even with devolution. Given enough time it will certainly be back to where they were.

Every single time they replace an old system with something else they all manage to add additional complicity. Don't know if you get to use HERA in your department but it is a complete pile of mess.

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#73

Post by SoftTalker »

copium wrote: post #48

I work in UK Government and the problem is that procurement depts are so afraid of awarding tenders to dodgy suppliers they add so many layers of bureaucracy that it prevents local or more innovative contractors. The rules are much more flexible for low value tenders Please realise there are many civil servants and local government officers that realise the system is overly bureaucratic and are encouraging procuremen…

> procurement depts are so afraid of awarding tenders to dodgy suppliers they add so many layers of bureaucracy that it prevents local or more innovative contractors

a/k/a regulatory capture. Large established vendors can afford the staffing to deal with this, small startups either cannot or they miss an obscure step in the process and they are excluded.

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#74

Post by throw1234567891 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #28
lowercased wrote: post #5

My spouse did business at a collector show in Illinois years ago. We filed some sales tax thing, as we collected sales tax (as we were told to do) and remitted it. Did that for... 2 years, IIRC, then didn't do that show again. We got letters threatening that we would be penalized if we didn't fill out the form and remit our collected tax. There was no option to say 'nothing'. I mean... we did one year - put 0. Then w…

Thats OK my county keeps threatening to pickup my dog if i dont get a new license. Maybe they have a special kennel for Urns?

They’ll just euthanise him. Better pay the license.

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#75

Post by llbbdd »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #28
lowercased wrote: post #5

My spouse did business at a collector show in Illinois years ago. We filed some sales tax thing, as we collected sales tax (as we were told to do) and remitted it. Did that for... 2 years, IIRC, then didn't do that show again. We got letters threatening that we would be penalized if we didn't fill out the form and remit our collected tax. There was no option to say 'nothing'. I mean... we did one year - put 0. Then w…

Thats OK my county keeps threatening to pickup my dog if i dont get a new license. Maybe they have a special kennel for Urns?

I was going to comment "dog license???" but I looked it up for my county and I had no idea this was a thing. I'm in awe. I adopted an adult dog ~9 years ago. He has issued literally one single bark in that span. He stays indoors or in my fenced-in yard 100% of the time because of some health issues. I'm supposed to pay an annual fee for this or they'll fine me?? Nobody ever told me this, not the shelter, not the vet he goes to regularly who presumably has the ability to check this.

There are also apparently canvassers paid by the county who go door to door checking for this?! I'm not the kind of person to typically nitpick about where my taxes are going, but...I retroactively and broadly apologize for every lighthearted jab I may have ever made about TV licensing in the UK. This is beyond dumb in comparison. And my condolences, the fact that this system leads to them harassing you in this way is completely insane.

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#76

Post by x______________ »

throw1234567891 wrote: post #74
calvinmorrison wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats OK my county keeps threatening to pickup my dog if i dont get a new license. Maybe they have a special kennel for Urns?

They’ll just euthanise him. Better pay the license.

>Maybe they have a special kennel for Urns?

Unless a new breed has been named, or an /s was missing, I'm not sure they will be very successful in their recovery attempts.

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#77

Post by cjbgkagh »

tardedmeme wrote: post #71
cjbgkagh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an invitation to bid on a government contract that needed local diversity certifications that would cost a bunch of money just to apply. They also had a scale down provision to basically nothing so even if we won there is no guarantee that the contract would cover the cost of certifications. We have list pricing so they wanted us to jump through these hoops and still give them the standard rate. We passed, but…

Now you know why government contracts are so expensive. They have to be, to cover the costs of dealing with the government. It's not wrong to over-quote a shitty customer by an amount that'd make you willing to deal with their shittiness. That's totally fine on your part actually, since either they take the bid and you make money, or they don't and you don't have to deal with them.

We do list pricing to cut down on marketing costs. Many tenders disallow increasing the price of deliverables over list pricing (it’s an automatic disqualification). You can’t throw in extra stuff either as they reserve the right to remove specific line items after awarding the tender. They write the rules to benefit themselves.

The only way I can increase prices is if I stop having an advertised price and go to a pure ‘contact us for pricing’ model. I can either be mass market at commodity prices or I can target governments at inflated costs but I can’t do both. We’re the last hold out in my niche and eventually we will have to leave the commodity market.

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#78

Post by pessimizer »

nickdothutton wrote: post #31

"The system is working as intended". I once attended an official seminar given by the government procurement department, to an audience of (mostly) government department people with purchase authority. The subject of which was how to construct your invitations to tender such that only the largest 3-4 suppliers could possibly respond. "Solves the problem of having to consider 20-30 suppliers and review their submissio…

I worked for the state and had to participate in procurement. Not only did they do this, but when we were purchasing commonly available things, we purchased them from weird insider vendors whose catalogs were literally photocopies of other catalogs with the prices blacked out.

When I left, people were advising me to become a vendor, which was what a lot of people did as a retirement plan. You'd go to the secret portal and fill out the inscrutable forms, then give them to someone who you probably knew at the special time. Then the state would order things from you, and you would simply order them from Amazon or Uline or whatever. There was also a trade in minority and female figureheads (to white male businesses) to get you prioritized.

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#79

Post by testemailfordg2 »

If you are on a framework, that gives prospective public sector buyers assurance that certain basic checks/ due-dilligence about your business has already been done. So even if you have not made a sale to a public sector entity in recent times but are on a framework then makes sense to keep your details up-to-date...

Re: The UK government's Low Value Purchase System is a waste of time

#80

Post by turtlebits »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #28
lowercased wrote: post #5

My spouse did business at a collector show in Illinois years ago. We filed some sales tax thing, as we collected sales tax (as we were told to do) and remitted it. Did that for... 2 years, IIRC, then didn't do that show again. We got letters threatening that we would be penalized if we didn't fill out the form and remit our collected tax. There was no option to say 'nothing'. I mean... we did one year - put 0. Then w…

Thats OK my county keeps threatening to pickup my dog if i dont get a new license. Maybe they have a special kennel for Urns?

I was about to comment the same thing. I just got an e-mail about pet licensing, it's been almost 10 years since my dog passed.
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