Flawed procurement

I was told by my managers that both companies were taking advantage of their position. The term “rotten contract” was used. Those same managers explained that both companies were too powerful and owned too much of the EM technology and intellectual property. They felt it was inappropriate that commercial companies had more knowledge than Government departments did about how electronic monitoring functioned.

They were determined to restore the balance of power to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

This is why the re-competition for future EM services included features that made it impossible for any single company (including G4S and Serco EM) to bid for all of the elements of any future contract. However well-intentioned this idea was, it was a deeply flawed and failed to consider the difficulty of building or operating such a service.

During the 2010/2011 pre-tender period, several possible providers of the next generation of EM approached the UK Government. Some were already established in the market; others were aspirant players. Pre-tender is the period before the publication of an invitation to tender, when authorities spend time (often with a range of companies) to develop there procurement strategy. It is a very important part of the process and was badly managed and under-utilised by the MoJ.

Many suggested they could modify commonly available mobile phone/satellite navigation technology to provide mechanisms that would transform the EM service. Further, they could facilitate the MoJ’s idea of marketing this new generation of EM technology worldwide. This was despite scientific evidence that that none of the proposed technology could deliver the outcomes proposed.

Lobbying by these companies took place at the highest level, including, I was told at the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office. The result of this lobbying was a belief from above that it was possible for multiple companies to provide different elements of the service, an idea which supported the prevalent procurement strategy. No consideration was made as to how these disparate suppliers would integrate in a reliable and affordable way.

It may have been regarded as a valid strategy to replace the existing EM duopoly with a service involving multiple suppliers. However, splitting up the EM service would require that all bidders burden themselves with the costs and risks associated with developing new technology and multiple systems, without any guarantee that they would be purchased.

Another, connected, issue was related to integration, a necessary feature of any service consisting of multiple providers. It is highly unlikely that during the procurement exercise any company would be willing to hand over or expose even part of their intellectual property or technology to another competitor or to the MoJ. One naïve suggestion made was that companies would “pre-integrate” so as to be able to be involved in the re-competition.

For decades electronic monitoring has been seen as a magic wand to solve the problem of overcrowded prisons, achieving the idea of the “prison without walls”. The idea is very attractive to politicians as it offers, at a very low cost to the UK taxpayer, virtual incarceration for offenders and enhanced protection for the public.

The reality is not so easy to establish. Like all technologies there is a limit to what it can achieve. In particular, the technology needs to be able to support the law, work seamlessly with the court system, and prove beyond reasonable doubt its ability to establish the accurate location of each individual at specific times. It is seductive to believe that the common and cheap technology buried in mobile phones can offer that level of assurance.

Sadly, that is as untrue now as it was in 2011. Relying on satellite telemetry and mobile phone signals to identify the precise locations of individuals was at the time a recipe for miscarriages of justice on an epic scale and would have undermined the public’s trust in the Criminal Justice System.

I resigned from my position at the MoJ because I was deeply unhappy with the way that senior civil servants disregarded technically expert but more junior staff. There were several people in central Government warning against the unrealistic strategy for procurement of a new generation of EM services. As I have outlined in these two articles, a failure to listen to us led to the catastrophic outcomes identified by the National Audit Office’s Value for Money report.

Paul Raymond is procurement specialist with over 20 years experience working with the public and private sectors. Two of those years were spent working at the Ministry of Justice

This is the second of two articles by him on the government failures in relation to the EM programme. The first article can be read here.