Clients have been reporting rumours about CDS Best Value Tendering (BVT) for a while now. Most of these have been initiated by Contract Managers, one was blunt enough to tell a client that his firm would not exist in 3 years time. It is hard to tell if this is a deliberate “softening up” exercise or just the “idle gossip” which happens from time to time. A consultation paper is however imminent.
This will of course be the Commissions 3rd attempt to launch such a process; the first was a cockamamy scheme they dreamed up in-house, the second a more involved (but equally unworkable) pilot scheme for which they (handsomely?) paid external consultants. Both were unceremoniously dumped, presumably when implementation practicalities intervened.
It is hard to imagine on what basis they think this will prove third time lucky. All the same basic objections exist and the same insurmountable problems have not gone away, not least the market in London.
That said I anticipate I will once again experience trying to explain something similar to a “declining clock auction” to a disbelieving room of Duty Solicitors. Deep joy.
