Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

shkspr.mobi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 108 posts

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

#81

Post by dashundchen »

llbbdd wrote: post #75
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?

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…

Why is dog licensing that crazy? You are required to license and register a car that's used in public. Your dog may always be on your property but for almost every other dog that is not that case.

A dog can be a public health threat, in both terms of disease and attacks on people or other dogs. Many states require rabies vaccinations for example .The owners are ultimately liable for that and there should be a way to track that.

Plus the fees frequently fund animal control and shelters in many areas.

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

#82

Post by jodrellblank »

toyg wrote: post #2

They should just have a "suspend account" option. You file a nil return once, suspend, never come back unless you have to. Seems easy enough.

So next month and all future months when the government has something it might buy from you, and you would like to sell to them, and you suspended your account telling them that they can’t, so they buy it elsewhere, then what?

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

#83

Post by gottorf »

vharuck wrote: post #59
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they ever fix the system. Some number of people will just pay it and those people are pure profit. Heck, fixing the system costs money. It's the same evil math behind every other billing scam that sails under the flag of ignorance. Speaking of ignorance, to all those people saying you forgot to fill out a form, there are several states that are known to be maliciously sloppy about this sort of thing. You fi…

>Why would they ever fix the system. Some number of people will just pay it and those people are pure profit. Heck, fixing the system costs money. The system is run by employees of whatever agency handles taxes. Neither the employees nor the agency keep a portion of the taxes. If they do not have the money or will to fix it, people are supposed to pressure their representatives to give them the money and mandate. If…

> pressure the representatives

In the GP's case, it sounds like they were on a road show, and they do not live in Illinois at all. Of course, that doesn't prevent them from contacting a IL state representative for redress, but it is an edge case of sorts.

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

#84

Post by rcxdude »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #77
tardedmeme wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

You could potentially do so with some extra games around 'different' products and/or business entities, but whether it's worth the trouble is another question (there are certainly companies that make a good margin just reselling products to the government).

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

#85

Post by rcxdude »

fg137 wrote: post #8

> So the GCA are wasting everyone's time and do not track how annoying it is. I am 80% sure that someone is aware how much waste there is, but nobody wants to / is able to change the process. Just like many other organizations.

I think if anyone's tracking, this specific example is so far down the list it's not worth thinking about. 2 days total effort per month? That's peanuts for waste in most organisations, let alone government.

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

#86

Post by llbbdd »

dashundchen wrote: post #81
llbbdd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is dog licensing that crazy? You are required to license and register a car that's used in public. Your dog may always be on your property but for almost every other dog that is not that case. A dog can be a public health threat, in both terms of disease and attacks on people or other dogs. Many states require rabies vaccinations for example .The owners are ultimately liable for that and there should be a way to…

Simple registration I have less of a problem with for some of the reasons you listed. Cross-reference with vet records, have fines specifically for missing rabies vaccinations etc for the sake of public health, sure. Maybe even bill me a nominal paperwork amount for the initial registration, maybe waive it for adoptions or make it an automatic thing the shelter does and builds into their fees. Having an annual subscription to my own dog is what seems ridiculous.

In theory the fees for car registration go towards maintaining the infrastructure that cars make use of. Taking a dog out in public doesn't have many similar externalities, and there are already targeted fines for off-leash dogs or for failing to clean up after them. I live in an area with a decent amount of dog-friendly public infrastructure, but that just seems like it would fall under regular parks funding, and I don't get a bill every year asking me how much time I spent at the park.

As far as where the funding goes, I'm sure that could be done better. Everyone in the county benefits from funded animal control and shelters. By adopting my dog from a shelter I have actually reduced the burden of responsibility on the local shelter system, which then seems backwards to tax me for.

Registration + annual fees aside though, door-to-door dog inspections are where I would absolutely draw the line. That we have any room at all to fund that is crazy to me.

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

#87

Post by cjbgkagh »

rcxdude wrote: post #84
cjbgkagh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

You could potentially do so with some extra games around 'different' products and/or business entities, but whether it's worth the trouble is another question (there are certainly companies that make a good margin just reselling products to the government).

If I could have I would have, I’m not the only person in this position nor is it their first tender, they progressively go and close the loopholes. If it’s on the market for a price they want this price regardless of the overhead they add to the process.

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

#88

Post by tardedmeme »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #77
tardedmeme wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

My understanding was that the government doesn't want list service, but wants to negotiate something very specific and annoying, like some weird compliance or support requirements. Of course the government can pay list price if they only want list service, but they don't. List service means you ship the product to the customer and then it's the customer's problem after that.

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

#89

Post by cjbgkagh »

tardedmeme wrote: post #88
cjbgkagh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

My understanding was that the government doesn't want list service, but wants to negotiate something very specific and annoying, like some weird compliance or support requirements. Of course the government can pay list price if they only want list service, but they don't. List service means you ship the product to the customer and then it's the customer's problem after that.

What you are saying does not make sense to me, if that were true then why have a provision requiring that any excess on list pricing would be disqualified. Also there was little scope for negotiation, basically if you meet a bar on functionality then the only consideration is price. Any ‘negotiation’ has to go through an app that loops in everyone who has applied and is really limited to clarifications of facts. This is one of many government orgs and tenders I’ve dealt with, and the first one I elected not to proceed with.

The typical strategy is to not ask for clarification and use deficiencies in the spec to justify change requests that gouge them. You need a cadre of lawyers to be able to play that game though.

Also there are a million of different governments and all different levels, I’m giving one anecdote as it applies to one of them. I’m sure many others have a different experience.

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

#90

Post by throwaway894345 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #63
throwaway894345 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illinois online forms are egregiously bad. A couple examples off the top of my head: I was traveling through the state and got on a toll road by accident without cash to pay the tolls, the toll booth employee said I could just pay online, pointing to a sign that said "missed a toll? pay online at ", so we continued our trip intending to pay the tolls online. At the end of the trip, I logged on to pay our tolls--the a…

Illinois is one of the most administratively fucked up and corrupt states in the country. Four of the last ten governors have been so bad they actually served prison time and the current governor appears to be cut from the same cloth. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/4-of-illinois-past-10-governo...

Illinois has a history of corruption for sure, but illinoispolicy.org is right-wing propaganda. Also, it’s corrupt and bureaucratic for a purple state but it’s still much better than the median red state (my native Iowa went from purple to solid red a decade ago, and we nosedived on everything from education to economy to deficit spending to public health to corruption).
Post reply on HN