Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill — House of Lords, 2015-03-03
Topic: Government Operations
Jonathan Mendelsohn (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for that reply. I do not wish to sound churlish, but I hope she will forgive me if I raise a couple of points in relation to what she has said. I made the point twice that this was not about trying to create a process that was rigged in favour, but was much more about making sure that procurement was open to small business because everything—the skills, systems and outputs—was designed towards achieving a better outcome, so that small business would find it easier to compete to try to gain those sorts of contracts I think there are different ways in which the numbers have been calculated. I do not wish to doubt them too much, but some of the tier 1 classification subcontracting has been reclassified. It seems that the numbers have changed slightly. There is progress and I do not wish to undermine or contest that, but it is important that we maintain our ambition for this On Amendment 27, I am encouraged that the Minister stated very clearly that it was complementary This is important and I would be grateful if the Government would consider what they could do to make sure what they are trying to do was much more explicit. I am afraid that there is great concern about what local authorities must do; how they must act and comply. I think they are actually very good at the job. One of the guides I read recently was for Wiltshire. If the Minister can show me a better central government guide to how to procure than Wiltshire has produced, I would be very surprised and more than happy to give her even more fulsome praise from the Dispatch Box than I have already. An important dimension is that we are placing the onus on local authorities, which have been so good at doing it. I thank the Minister for her comments but an outstanding issue is that some local authorities have done a very good job and we should be mindful of that On Amendment 31, the procurement adjudicator has a very useful function. There are systems of redress, but this is not really about those. It is about systems of intervention. As the Minister rightly says, they are doing things on redress, like strengthening the mystery shopper, and we discussed this in Committee. There are also the usual methods of employing lawyers and going through the courts. However, the point of an adjudicator in these circumstances is to be much more dynamic, engaged and involved in encouraging the capacity of those procuring and the people involved in designing the processes. There needs to be a more dynamic conversation to make sure the skills are there. I make the point again that everyone will recognise at different times that there is a risk-averse culture; systems are repeated and there is a lack of a dynamic sense about how you procure better. In the private sector, some go through a sort of performance to make sure their procuring capacity becomes ever more skilful, but this is probably lacking in the public sector. That dynamic conversation, which may need a mediator, is what the adjudicator is for. It is not just about systems of redress I have had a quick look at Contracts Finder as it stands at the moment in its beta version. Although I welcome the initiative, it is not particularly user-friendly and needs a fair degree of work to make it so. If the Minister would consider making it available also as an app, then the design might be more useful and reflective of what is needed and it would be more accessible to some businesses. There is no point in putting it on one site if it is not as readily available as it could be. In summary, I would be very grateful if the Minister would give further consideration to what we have said and see if there is any way to deal with the areas we are trying to address on how to get the systems working to procure better. I am very grateful that the Government will look at what I said earlier but anything that would give a stronger indication of how we could do something a little bit more inventive, to add to the efforts that she has already outlined, would be greatly appreciated at Third Reading.