Spurgeon Peter, Hicks Carolyn
Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, UK.
Health Serv Manage Res. 2003 Aug;16(3):188-93. doi: 10.1258/095148403322167942.
The tendering process has become the dominant and now traditional approach to the allocation of research and consultancy projects. This is largely built around the notion that it ensures accountability and probity within the allocative procedure, and that high quality of work and 'value for money' are the outcomes. It appears to have become an institutionalized and unchallengeable process. Yet it is rarely costed in terms of the true resource implications for all the organizations involved, nor is quality assessed in terms of alternative processes that might be employed. This paper explores the tendering process in terms of factors that may suggest that the quality of work produced via the tendering process is not always as good as it might be. Also in a hypothetical example involving the university sector and the National Health Service, data are presented indicating that the overall cost to the public sector is often actually greater than the value of the contract being allocated. An alternative preferred provider relationship-based allocative process is advocated as an improvement to the current established tendering procedure.
招标过程已成为分配研究和咨询项目的主要且如今已传统的方式。这在很大程度上基于这样一种观念，即它确保了分配程序中的问责制和廉洁性，并且高质量的工作和“物有所值”是其结果。它似乎已成为一个制度化且不可挑战的过程。然而，就对所有相关组织的真正资源影响而言，它很少进行成本核算，也没有根据可能采用的替代流程来评估质量。本文从一些因素的角度探讨招标过程，这些因素可能表明通过招标过程产生的工作质量并不总是尽如人意。此外，在一个涉及大学部门和国民医疗服务体系（NHS）的假设示例中，给出的数据表明，公共部门的总体成本实际上往往高于所分配合同的价值。本文倡导一种基于首选供应商关系的替代分配过程，作为对当前既定招标程序的一种改进。
