Sir, – Brian Lynch (November 8th) in telling of the sophistication of the new patronage, if new it be, beyond the “brown” envelope culture, could have been describing life as it is lived at Stormont, where even tenders for small amounts of money that are still required to be advertised, can be awarded with “light touch” regulation and with little hope of being challenged if the outcome is deemed by any participant to have been decided unfairly.
The biggest obstacle to exposing any shortcomings in applying conditions of fairness, or value for money to the taxpayer in the decision-making process, is cost, especially the legal cost. Fear of being victimised later in further tendering exercises is another.
Transparency as to how tenders are marked, the consistency of the weighting of the questions and whether like is compared with like, would require a degree of due diligence that is often not apparent in the awarding of such contracts, normally below the radar of most watchdogs.
Those who are, or were, unsuccessful bidders if briefed afterwards as to why they lost are wasting their time. It would take something serious like the Danish Complaints Board for Public Procurement to make public, or central, procurement agencies not only accountable but accessible to penalty for wrong-doing, even through incompetence. – Yours, etc,