Comment by marcus_holmes

With all the hassle a government contract can bring, it's just not worth it for anything lower.

This was early-00s so it was slightly more trouble than that but still not the end of the world.

The point is, the person wasn't trying to hedge against looking bad, they literally had to do and document this.

And even if doesn't, writing five online shops to send you a written offer takes a couple minutes and results in the same or lower prices

Procurement for such small items can be quick and sane. It's the larger items where rules tighten and procurement portals or bidding become mandated that are problematic

> because PWC is a highly-respected organisation.

PwC are a well known band of crooks who always put their own enrichment well ahead of the public interest.

They were banned entirely from bidding for Australian federal government contracts, because they misused privileged information on tax policy they received from one client (the government) to advise other clients on tax avoidance strategies. It was a symptom of systemic corruption that permeates their entire business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PwC_tax_scandal

> Because large organisations get like this;

Still it does not need to be this way. Large organisations used to actually get s** done generally in budget and on time. Now we can’t even do a simple tasks without mountains of paper work and cash. I know, my partner used to work in a related industry, it’s painful to hear their stories.

In the tender there's one line:

> IV.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes

Googling the UK Government Procurement Agreement got me to:

> https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-standar...

which was when I realised this was a rabbit hole and while I am positive that somewhere deep in that rabbit hole would be a requirement for all procurement suppliers to meet ISO9000 or similar, I was going to have to spend hours finding it. Hours I don't have.

You can cheerfully dismiss this opinion if you like, I don't have the data to provide you evidence.

But I also think this proves my point; if you have to spend hours just finding out what the requirements are, you probably don't meet them.

If this was a good fit for SME, and the price paid for the whole thing was 4M pounds, why didn’t any SME win the tender? Seriously, that’s the whole yearly turnover for most SME shops I ever worked at. And all of them could do a better job than this.

For government tenders, I do know that agencies need certification. Maybe not ISO2001 (which is a security standard that many corporate procurement processes require the supplier to have obtained when purchasing software), but Cyber Essentials / Cyber Essentials Plus is common.

My father was a ISO9000 and ISO9001 certification consultant for over 10 years. He taught at Cal Poly Pamona, near the end of that era. This was my first exposure to using the familiar terms seen in RFCs like MUST MAY SHALL, etc.

Ever tried to write a quality based document describing how to create an air filled, japanese oragami balloon? (step 3 is the first big hurdle, https://www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Origami-Balloon). That was his goto starter for ISO classes.

> I've been doing this for over 25 years and I think that a quality based approach to running a company is a good idea ... you?

ISO standards don't ensure this, since certification is only based on verifying documentation format. What the ISO processes do tend to do is create a small memo indicating that every dept should justify the work they are doing by writing it down and showing it to their boss. What that does to an organization is to produce a crapload of near-useless documentation and throw a large number of people into political hell. After that, the solution is always the same. They quickly move from everyone trying to coordinate down to a very small number of people (1-3) taking charge of moving dept to dept. Either the agents or the supervisors who are articulate enough to gloss over inconsistencies and gaps to form a coherent story, write the documentation.

While this may lend well to shoring up some companies' internals, in the early 2000s, ISO certification consultancy was a lucrative gig. It was chased as a stamp to markup pricing, rather than a quality tool.

I think "concentrates the mind towards doing things right" is an accurate statement. On the other hand the parent is also correct that it is almost impossible to fail and the requirements are too broad to actually have much effect. The most helpful thing is you get the knowledge and experience of an auditor for a day. Other benefits are having someone make you write your processes down and making it easier to replace people, making sure there is a chart documenting the relationships between the people and to have some language about dealing with customer complaints and defective produce.