By coincidence on the same day that the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) announced revised growth forecasts, predicting that the economy would overtake its pre-2008 crisis peak in the second quarter of 2014 rather than in 2016, an SME announced that it was pulling out of further involvement in a valuable contract with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
Sara Murray, founder of Aylesbury technology company Buddi, said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that tendering for the contract to supply software and tags for tracking 24,000 offenders had eaten up nearly two years of the company’s time and cost £2 million to assemble the documentation required for the bid. The paperwork filled 13 large boxes delivered in two taxis. It was the only SME to win a part of the 4-Lot contract.
Then came further MoJ requests for “thousands of pages of information” to be given to other bidders and requests to share Buddi’s intellectual property with other bidders. Buddi also had to deal with constantly changing specifications until finally the demand that Buddi would do further development work free of charge. This was the final straw that triggered Ms Murray’s decision to withdraw from the tender process.
In 2005 Buddi was a start-up. When it began working on the bid it had 25 staff. While preparing the tender for this contract with the MoJ it was servicing existing contracts both nationally and internationally and focused on growth. It now employs 40 people.
Ms Murray said the company has tendered for and won work overseas and found their processes far faster and far less complex. She sits on a number of Government advisory panels and is passionate about getting SMEs working with Government.
Government claims it wants to help SMEs grow, it promises to remove red tape, and it wants more SMEs to work with them. It seems there’s a long way to go.
If the BCC’s prediction is proved accurate, given Buddi’s experience one has to ask whether all this growth will be confined to the “usual big-company suspects”.
Are you aware of SMEs tendering for public sector contracts? Is there one bit of red tape above all others that you would like to see removed?