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This fails to stop corruption and just introduces further red tape. It seems that you're looking for a sanity check to veto insanely out of date and silly prac

by buro9 15y ago

This fails to stop corruption and just introduces further red tape. It seems that you're looking for a sanity check to veto insanely out of date and silly practises, but having read the synopsis of the petition I would say that you are introducing further ability to have private industry act corruptly and direct more tax payer money into their pockets without actually providing the sanity check you're looking for. I say that speaking as someone who has taken part in a number of multi-million pound bids for work in the past. What you've got to do is stop the vendors from being the decision makers. Government lacks the knowledge of how to do things and keeps asking private industry, who then write their wish list of work that keeps them flush for another 10 years. Nothing in your proposal stops this, and all it seems to do is to make this corruption even more official as they would just pay another 3rd party to approve the proposal.

harel 15y ago
The panel cannot take part in the bid itself, just scrutinize the bids they come and question their budgets. The bidders do not know who the panel is so they can't influence it. The panel doesn't have to know who the bidder is as well. They just get a spec and a budget attached. All I'm after is not seeing so many multi-million-billion failures when I know the initial budget was way overkill. (If 'multi' was 1,5 or 10 million I would have understood. But 100, 600, 20,000 million is a bit much).
- buro9 15y ago
  Just like I always knew which company had written the proposal from the technologies and choices made, I would also know if I were on a panel all of the possible bidding companies and the solutions. The panel would have to be vetted and trusted, right? In which case there would be record of who was vetted and trusted and you would know who to suck up to and bribe in other ways. And the panel would definitely spot the SharePoint vs Clarity choice and know who was the bidding consortium or vendor. I applaud your intent, but think it fails to address the problems with IT acquisition and could actually make it worse. If I can see how to abuse the process, you can be certain that a vendor will take advantage of it even for a contract worth a couple of million.
  - harel 15y ago
    OK, I hear your point but its still a technicality that can be over come - how to shield the panel from the bidder and vice versa. Perhaps the decision on who's in the panel is random form a large pool of professionals and decided on the day? Perhaps its like a Jury duty where the panel is removed from their environment for a day or two? Its a logistical technicality. The idea I think still stands - those budgets are a blatant misuse of public funds due to misdirection and misinformation, and at the scale of those budgets its disastrous in the state of the current economy.
stretchwithme 15y ago
The only thing that reduces corruption is choice. Being able to choose whether you are going to participate in a scheme gives you the ability to walk away from situations where you are being taken advantage of. And that is not what government gives you. Its what government takes away. It doesn't have to be that way, of course. We could be governing our affairs through voluntary cooperation not coercion. But that would mean a distinct lack of jobs for those unable to produce anything of value.

by buro9 15y ago

harel 15y ago

The panel cannot take part in the bid itself, just scrutinize the bids they come and question their budgets. The bidders do not know who the panel is so they can't influence it. The panel doesn't have to know who the bidder is as well. They just get a spec and a budget attached. All I'm after is not seeing so many multi-million-billion failures when I know the initial budget was way overkill. (If 'multi' was 1,5 or 10 million I would have understood. But 100, 600, 20,000 million is a bit much).

buro9 15y ago
Just like I always knew which company had written the proposal from the technologies and choices made, I would also know if I were on a panel all of the possible bidding companies and the solutions. The panel would have to be vetted and trusted, right? In which case there would be record of who was vetted and trusted and you would know who to suck up to and bribe in other ways. And the panel would definitely spot the SharePoint vs Clarity choice and know who was the bidding consortium or vendor. I applaud your intent, but think it fails to address the problems with IT acquisition and could actually make it worse. If I can see how to abuse the process, you can be certain that a vendor will take advantage of it even for a contract worth a couple of million.
- harel 15y ago
  OK, I hear your point but its still a technicality that can be over come - how to shield the panel from the bidder and vice versa. Perhaps the decision on who's in the panel is random form a large pool of professionals and decided on the day? Perhaps its like a Jury duty where the panel is removed from their environment for a day or two? Its a logistical technicality. The idea I think still stands - those budgets are a blatant misuse of public funds due to misdirection and misinformation, and at the scale of those budgets its disastrous in the state of the current economy.

stretchwithme 15y ago

The only thing that reduces corruption is choice. Being able to choose whether you are going to participate in a scheme gives you the ability to walk away from situations where you are being taken advantage of. And that is not what government gives you. Its what government takes away. It doesn't have to be that way, of course. We could be governing our affairs through voluntary cooperation not coercion. But that would mean a distinct lack of jobs for those unable to produce anything of value.