Government Contracting

October 8, 2009

I confess that ‘OGC’ seems to have been implanted in a long forgotten hypnosis session as the keyword sending me into a catatonic trance. So I am pleading for informed comment on the blog as much of the content of Session 3 flew over my head. There was a good dynamic between the speakers so I imagine it was a good session, but they did keep mentioning OGC!

The most accessible stuff was Richard Bonnar on possible Tory policies on IT and government. I do hope he will be brave enough to turn that into an article. I have a lot of sympathy with the ‘big is bad’ view in the IT context although, as my wife often says, size isn’t everything. A lot of small projects are bloody awful too.

In any case, I am not sure that the Conservatives will be breaking up global industrial giants into local co-operatives so there may be a philosophical inconsistency there.

Alistair Maughan’s presentation was about the law, which came as a bit of a shock. Case citations and black letter law, on a Friday! Actually, freedom of information was the keyword that drew me back to full attention and the possibility of large-scale litigation over procurement, now in its infancy, growing into a major area of practice is exciting.

I can only offer my apologies to Andrew Hooles, whose presentation I abandoned with a view to recruiting authors in another room. I was sorry to go though because I was intrigued by his opening about the special place the lawyer has in such situations. Definitely an article there!