I work in UK Government and the problem is that procurement depts are so afraid of awarding tenders to dodgy suppliers they add so many layers of bureaucracy that it prevents local or more innovative contractors. The rules are much more flexible for low value tenders <£30k but it is a very exclusionary system.
Please realise there are many civil servants and local government officers that realise the system is overly bureaucratic and are encouraging procurement teams to change their processes, but it is mostly dictated by national legislation.
I think allowing mayoral authorities to flex their procurement systems for innovative solutions would be a good testing ground. The whole point of devolution is to allow areas to spend money locally how they see fit and it can become a bit of a laboratory for new, risky ideas that - if they pay off - can be copied by other places.
Yes - the legislation itself needs ripped up and replaced with common sense procurement that follows industry norms.
As someone who bids for these contracts, my outsider view of the procurement process is that it seems to spends so much time and effort being fair and impartial, that it actually ends up:
* Giving too much information to suppliers (i.e. who else is bidding and how much the government will pay) - These things are never given in private sector contracts but you are often told with a public sector procurement process.
* Being a checkbox excercise, with scorecard criteria that can tip the balance that don't have anything to do with how well the company actually does the job.
* The procurement process itself can say to companies 'we are hard to deal with, uncooperative and don't really know what we want', which will obviously influence pricing. I've seen tender documents say silly things like you will be disqualified if you can't make an in-person meeting about the tender given 24 hours notice. Tender documents often contain 49 pages of waffle and almost zero specification of what is actually expected to be delivered (while this is common in the private sector too, it's much worse in the public sector in terms of how poorly defined tenders are).
* Often they have classic procurement footguns, like mandating cost down initiatives throughout the contract which everyone on the sales side knows means 'build in extra margin in years 1 & 2 to fake cost down to year 3'
* The process is so 'fair' that it ignores who will actually do the job for the best total value (mix of quality and cost). This is maybe a little subjective, but often you can end up with what appear to be bizarre awards from an outside perspective.
I don't think it will change even with devolution. Given enough time it will certainly be back to where they were.
Every single time they replace an old system with something else they all manage to add additional complicity. Don't know if you get to use HERA in your department but it is a complete pile of mess.
> procurement depts are so afraid of awarding tenders to dodgy suppliers they add so many layers of bureaucracy that it prevents local or more innovative contractors
a/k/a regulatory capture. Large established vendors can afford the staffing to deal with this, small startups either cannot or they miss an obscure step in the process and they are excluded.
How does targeting Chesa Boudin "not make much sense"? He has made things materially worse with policies of catch and release and mismanagement of the DA's Office. Bringing directly elected officials to account is a good first step.
Also if the suspects you talked about were prosecuted with "serious charges", why were they released? Surely there is a related policy which allowed this. Electing people to change those policies is the central method of effective change.
Is Chesa also responsible for the spikes in crime rates in Spokane, Phoenix, Laredo, and Nashville? There’s an asymmetry to this narrative where progressive DAs are responsible for all crime in their districts but conservative DAs are not. No matter what the facts are, the solution for some reason is always to swing in the tough-on-crime direction.
Please, engage in the topic. Why do the crime rates of San Francisco disprove the theories of progressive policies, but the crime rates of Memphis, the nation’s most dangerous city by far, do not disprove the tough-on-crime theories of that jurisdiction’s district attorney?
Great. In that case you agree with numerous academic studies: the progressive or conservative policies of district attorneys has no influence over local crime rates!
Now with that settled we can discuss the causes and solutions of crime in SF. Because we’ve ruled out Chesa Boudin as both cause and potential solution.
> Great. In that case you agree with numerous academic studies: the progressive or conservative policies of district attorneys has no influence over local crime rates!
Don't put words in my mouth. You probably think yourself clever, having trapped me with a "gotem". Actually, you kinda just made yourself look foolish. You have demonstrated a clear lack of understanding in how the justice system works.
I'll educate you.
Prosecutors have to bring charges to hold people accountable. If the prosecutor doesn't bring charges or does a poor job presenting their case, criminals aren't held accountable.
If a prosecutor brings charges and secure a conviction, the judge needs to provide an appropriate sentence. It used to be the case that judges had a lot of discretion as to how to sentence an offender. Now sentencing is tightly controlled by state law and sentencing guideline commissions, which are GENERALLY soft on crime (in the name of "equity").
State law and/or sentencing commissions ultimately decide what the maximum punishment for a crime can be.
So in short, you're wrong about Chesa Boudin. If ANY ONE of the above three entities fails to hold criminal accountable, the entire system fails to hold criminals accountable. In Chesa Boudin's case, he's failing at least as much as every other component.
Please realise there are many civil servants and local government officers that realise the system is overly bureaucratic and are encouraging procurement teams to change their processes, but it is mostly dictated by national legislation.
I think allowing mayoral authorities to flex their procurement systems for innovative solutions would be a good testing ground. The whole point of devolution is to allow areas to spend money locally how they see fit and it can become a bit of a laboratory for new, risky ideas that - if they pay off - can be copied by other places.
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