Page 63 of Coronavirus, anyone starting to get worried?

Quote:
Robee J Shepherd says...
"swapping due diligence for no diligence is inexcusable."
But that BBC article clearly said that specifications were provided and the company stated they could meet that specification.

So you can't say that no diligence was applied, but how many countries are reliant on China for PPE and how many orders so far have been of poor quality?  There's been more than a few...

In terms of identifying the supplier and how the contract was awarded, I agree this needs looking at.


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Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

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Quote:
Si Wooldridge says...
"But that BBC article clearly said that specifications were provided and the company stated they could meet that specification."
If you were working for a company, and your job was to procure something, and this was all you did to procure something, would you feel you'd done your job properly?


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Quote:
Robee J Shepherd says...
"If you were working for a company, and your job was to procure something, and this was all you did to procure something, would you feel you'd done your job properly?"
Well, I'm not a procurement expert and it's well-known that HMG procurement has been awful for a long time, and there have been numerous examples during this lockdown alone of procurement issues - let alone infinite issues during more normal times.

My basic understanding of procurement is that there are two basic areas:

1.  tendering process
2. contract management

If I was working in the first area then I need to know the type of widget, the specification of said widgets, an idea of pricing and delivery dates.

If I issued the tender and got those assurances back, which may or may not involve asking for samples, then I think I would be happy.

Based on what I know from that report, it's the contract management where the issue appears to be.  There should be, and the article agrees that there are, clauses that can be invoked if the contract is not adhered to by either side of the agreement.  It appears that no such clauses have been invoked presently, so there are definite questions to be asked as to why. 

One reason may well be that those who received the goods didn't bother checking them and issued them straight out to sites, who may also have been slow to report quality issues.  I don't know if any of that is true at this point, I just go by the word in the article that no clauses have been invoked to highlight any issues.

We also don't know what is happening behind the scenes, we only know what is being discussed in public by people who only have a partial picture.  That picture may be accurate, it may not.

If I was working in Contract Management at this point and wasn't aware of the issues raised, then I wouldn't be happy.

We can argue over single supplier and we'll have different views, I can guarantee that, but history is littered with contracts where false promises have been made and also where price has dictated the winner rather than quality.

Happy for all of those questions to be asked and see where it leads us.  For the record, I wasn't happy about the recent perceived conflict of interest by Robert Jenrick.

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Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

http://synth.myreviewer.com

Dr Hope watches a pandemic movie...
 
I suppose we can take heart that he has enough free time to watch movies for his YT channel...

Quote:
Jitendar Canth says...
"Dr Hope watches a pandemic movie..."
Oddly enough this came up on my youtube recommendations this afternoon, so I'm bouncing between watching this and working...

**EDIT** finished watching it now and whilst I still think the film is great, I'd forgotten just how swiftly they'd moved to a cure and why on earth have we not been able to do that with COVID-19????  Oh wait, someone already ate the bat...

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Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

http://synth.myreviewer.com

This item was edited on Wednesday, 12th August 2020, 16:17

Death toll revised downwards by 5000.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53722711

While I can understand, and agree with the rationale behind this, eliminating those from the statistics who had Covid, recovered, and then died from other causes, I can't help be reminded of those infamous, seasonally adjusted unemployment figures previous governments used to give us...

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Jitendar Canth

Quote:
"I thought what I`d do was, I`d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."

Site Reviewer at DVD Reviewer & MyReviewer

Carving out a niche with a pneumatic drill at Anime @ MyReviewer.com

This guy took the Russian vaccine and documented it:

How to have sex during a pandemic?

will we see mask vending machines in the toilets in pubs now?

https://admars32.wordpress.com/

https://mobro.co/admars?mc=1

Durex combined ribbed mask/condom...not really combined, obviously...

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Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

http://synth.myreviewer.com

This item was edited on Thursday, 20th August 2020, 15:37