What's Fair?

There was an interesting article on the front page of the Victoria Times Colonist yesterday morning. The discussions surrounding this article are interesting from the aspect of 'what' people think went wrong. In the grand scheme of things, this is only $300,000 out of the billions spent by the BC Provincial government. Here's some items that were up for discussion:

1) Some believe it is an issue of bad press and needing to be careful with the media - okay, yes, bad press, but there were some facts that triggered the media.

2) Some believe it was an issue of government staff 'double-dipping' - however, the article notes that the auditor stated the workers did NOT conduct their contract work during their employment working hours.

3) Some believed it to be a conflict of interest on the part of the government and the government workers - however, the workers were from a different ministry from the one they were providing training t0, so under the BC Public Sector Standards of Conduct, are allowed to have a 'business' that consults to government as long as it is NOT what they are paid to do as an employee (article doesn't provide enough detail to determine this aspect).

4) Some stated the problem was in direct awarding this much without competition. Alas, that is the issue of the article - under the BC Procurement policy any contracts above $50,000 are supposed to be publicly posted if they believe there is no-one else capable of providing the services (to allow for other bidders to identify themselves).

5) Some wondered how either Legal Services missed it, or how the ministry avoided the required legal review of their contracts. There is a policy that builds in an addition checkpoint - any contracts that go over $250,000 are supposed to have Legal Services review.

So although the article was in reality, about spending government money without a competitive process, many different people saw other sub-issues surrounding it giving the article a lot more 'bang for the buck'. People are still talking about it today (a day later). Some figure there will be even further scrutiny of their processes!

Something for people to consider when they venture into procurement processes without being aware of their own policy. One may not agree with the policy, or one may believe policy needs to be updated, but at the end of the day, if one does not take care with the process of how they are spending public funds, the media can create an impact on public trust.

PSBlog by Katherine Caughran is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.