Over my decades of working in the public sector, nearly all of my experiences of public sector service tendering have been a variation on some truly awful and nervous experiences. This was as true of my time as a public sector manager tendering for services as it is now – as a private sector person bidding to supply them. Nearly every part of every experience has been hedged around by the fear and anxiety of putting a foot wrong or saying a word out of place. 

Now I’m as prepared as the next person to blame lawyers for everything and I certainly think the law and its representatives in the world of procurement are pretty culpable for creating a bad climate. But I think it is wider than that. It has become a cultural issue for both sides of the relationship. There is a level of anxiety about working across this buyer/seller divide which goes way beyond the law and hits at some core anxieties about the nature of these relationships.