Thursday, 4 December 2008

Best of Breed Madness (Part 2)

(By Anthony Miller) A week ago I wrote about a £50m capital works contract awarded by Torbay Council to no fewer than 48 suppliers – and that’s before the ICT vendors had been selected (see Local Government – taking ‘best of breed’ too far?). It seems that ‘best of breed madness’ is not confined to multi-million pound deals. Bridgend County Borough Council has just awarded a £450K contract for the “Supply of Ballpoint Pens, Fibre Tip Markers and Non Toxic (sic) Pencils” to 12 different suppliers, the smallest winning the princely sum of £1,100. A separate £380K award for envelopes went to three suppliers. Couldn’t they have just done a deal with Rymans?

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