Government procurement policy and practice poles apart?

We all know that the policy is to get more small and medium enterprises into public sector supply chains. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests the opposite is happening, at least in some industries.

I was talking to the MD of a mid size building services company yesterday, the kind the government is targeting, with a local base and local labour and he said that he has lost a lot of business to the big players.

This is thanks to the practice within London boroughs of letting one all encompassing building and maintenance contract, rather than a number of smaller self contained jobs.

The driver for this is greater efficiency. Ironically the big players who win the contracts then sub contract what they can to the really small one man and his van type set up, presumably at very 'squeezed' rates, to ensure profits can be sliced off the top.

I suspect this is compromising quality and safety and would not be surprised if well managed, mid sized locally based companies see work return to them in the future, so long as they can find a strategy to survive until then.