Ms Patricia Callan:

On the specific question about demonstrating value for money, which is important, I would throw that back and ask how can the Office of Government Procurement demonstrate that it has secured value. Going back to the data aspect, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that even after these large contracts are awarded, a lot of off-contract buying goes on, which ultimately ends up being more expensive than what was originally projected. All of that buying must be monitored but, equally, we need to look at the other end of the equation. Large contracts present particular problems, but we also have a lot of members telling us that some contracts are simply too small. In our submission, for example, we note that some local enterprise offices, which should know all about micro-businesses, are tendering for a half-day training course. One of our member companies, TenderScout, which works in this area professionally, has given us data showing that €200 million is being spent by suppliers each year on tender proposals, only some 20% of which will be successful. In essence, some €150 million is being wasted in our economy by all of these businesses spending time and money on unsuccessful tenders. I was talking to a business owner yesterday who is in the website business. This person told me that for one large contract, applicants were given just ten days to respond even though the process was not simply producing a written document but involved a design component and showing what the website might look like. There are problems at both ends, with large contracts and with small contracts, and too many companies are wasting a great deal of money trying to operate within the system. It is important to note that in Ireland, approximately double the number of companies would be trying to get into the tendering process as would be the case abroad. It is a waste of their time.