Forum Topic

commercial confidentiality in public contracts

Am I the only one that thinks that hiding behind "commercial confidentiality" as a way of keeping secret the contents of council contracts (specifically the Enterprise waste contract with LBE) stinks?See the Ealing Today article:   http://www.ealingtoday.co.uk/default.asp?section=info&spage=common/earubbishfines001.htmThis one and many others like it are contracts for public services which involve the spending of a great deal of our money.I believe that the full details of these contracts should be published for all to see.What do you think?

Tony Colliver ● 4842d6 Comments

None of this hits the real point.A company was awarded a contract. Joe Public can hardly expect to be given access to every financial detail.But if there is a continuing failure to deliver, then that's my money and your money being mismanaged by tin pot senior executives under the general directive of an incompetent political party in power.We all know the contract is not working satisfactorily. We all know that there are penalty clauses. We don't care how about the subtle ways used to calculate the figures.All we want to know is how much the company is being fined every quarter, and for which functions.Now that information is not commercially sensitive to any great extent. To the extent that it is, its importance is far outweighed by the public interest. All the other cleaning companies who may be interested in this contract can or do read in their inhouse magazines that Enterprise is making us unhappy.And if they see that Enterprise was fined £1K or £10K or whatever it is not going to be particularly helpful in commercial terms should they wish to tender if that ever happens.So the moron in the Council who tells us that this info cannot be released for commercial reasons is deluded to the extent that they should step down. Enterprise are in breach. They have lost rights to total confidentiality. The information has to be released.What happened to whistleblowers?

George Knox ● 4841d

Tony, the contract could be available for all and sundry to see - items that the vendor would not want public record, such as pricing tarriff's, could be tucked away in schedules that are not for general viewing.In my view, these contracts are not for our eyes for fear that we will see what a bunch of amateurs are pissing our money away!

Bud Richards ● 4841d

The whole thing stinks across all local government. Has done since all this secret tendering nonsense started.Contracts that are not worth the paper they are written on,  Management Consultancies and lawyers all making a packet and ripping off councils and their ratepayers.There needs to be a huge change in the law over transparency and the best bit about this is it really would save council taxpayers a fortune as it would bring about genuine value for money and expose the gravy train and noses in the trough,

Michael Brandt ● 4841d

There's actually a good reason for not having full transparency in commercial contracts - if pricing information is shared this typically results in bidders normalising on a prices over a series of tenders with the consequence that the lowest price isn't achieved for any given level of quality.By making pricing confidential it's far easier to get better value bids - or at least that's the typical experience of running procurements in the public sector.

Tony Gould ● 4841d

What local authority contracts would have a national security impact?Unfortunately, commercial confidentiality is a fig leaf that local and national government reaches for frequently when attempting to hide its misdemeanours, failures and corruption from public view.As more and more public services are privately contracted to the friends and business associates of greasy palmed politicians, we can expect this to increase. The government is seeking to restrict even further the scope of the Freedom of Information Act, one of the first tools the public has had to prise information out of public bodies (and which which Tony Blair, a true anti-democrat, describes as his greatest regret in government).

M Duley ● 4842d

I believe transparency of all particulars in local authority contracts should be a must. Except where there are national security matters in question, when the Police should be involved.

Gerry Tan ● 4842d