What is really needed is proper enforcement of the law and of apparent guidelines.
Grenfell Tower would not have happened if the law had been enforced properly (or even if there had been some on-the-ball procurement/contract management from the ITT onwards), and the 30 days payment terms is supposed to be mandatory where a big contractor (e.g. Carillion) is working on a govt contract- they are supposed to pay their suppliers at 30 days. There is a "fair payment" charter they have all signed up to. If they had been truthful in signing it (or been legally held to it), the difference to both the actual services and the small companies effected would have mitigated the Carillion collapse a lot- and in fact Carillion probably wouldn't have gone on so long.
I have a fair chunk of past experience working on "bid teams" writing bid proposals on public sector contracts; and it is starting to become a thing with some more aware Buyers to have "knock-out" questions in bids to get a basic level of service (e.g. on compliance with the law on such matters as Health & Safety and Equality Act)- basically if the potential providers cannot (evidence they can) meet the specified standard, they are out of the bid at the first stages. That way, that basic level is not over-ridden by cost considerations later on (which can otherwise happen with the scoring weighing of different elements).
So, the mechanism is there, and in the same way a tenderer can be asked for evidence of H&S stats and diversity info, equally they could be asked to provide evidence of fair treatment of their supply chain. After all, a well-treated supply chain gives a better service (at a better price- pricing for the "aggravation factor" of working for some big players is hardly unknown) so there is a valid justification, especially as the govt has a Fair Payment Charter. Also, Supply Chain Assurance is about the whole life of the contract- not just about the bid.......
Of course, in any tender, if you bid using false info, you can nullify the contract later on, so there are mechanisms to deal with that too.
What is lacking in all this is a level of what I will call "social integrity." It IS possible to have good public sevices provided by private companies, but the basic economics are that even if it's minimising the layers of supply chain, it's unlikely to be lower in price than a well-managed publically owned organisation. (The issue there is "well managed"). There's just as much poor management in the private sector, and anyone who thinks there's much in the way of consequence if a private sector manager screws up is sadly deluded (unless the manager is junior and being used as a scapegoat). Yes, there are some good companies out there- but "private good, public bad" is way over-simplistic, and a too-strictly doctrinaire position (either way) doesn't help us out of the mess we are in as a country.
I'm not against private sector- in fact often local SME/small specialist companies do fantastic things and provide really responsive services; but I also think that the key providers at a higher level should be publically owned and held properly accountable. Ideally, working with local small businesses, supportive and also more sustainable- keeps money in the local economy. I am dead against big conglomerates which use multi-layer subcontracting and off-shore their profits so pay little or no corporation tax, and pay mahoosive salaries to the top whilst squeezing the people who do the work.
Overall- the frameworks and mechanisms are there to deal with a lot of this. But it needs sustained will and some social integrity to do the right thing for the whole of our society in the long term; and I see too little of such social integrity left in public life these days.Yes, I know there will still be some tough working conditions in some places, but "two wrongs don't make a right" and poor conditions in one part of the economy don't justify imposing such across the board! We should be improving, not racing to the bottom.
JMO tho.
TPO
