Room 317
24 September 2009
Richmond House
79 Whitehall
[FOI #12845 email]
London
SW1A 2NS
Tel: 020 7210 2705
Email: [email address]
Our Ref: 436020R
Dear Mr Gore
Thank you for your e-mail of 28 August 2009 in which you requested an internal
review of your related Freedom of Information requests submitted to the
Department on 4 June and 3 July 2009 (our ref: DE436020). In addition, we
received a further related e-mail request from you on the 4 August 2009.
We are replying to both your internal review request and most recent request of
4 August, in this letter.
Your original request asked for the Department’s policy about discrimination by
its staff or contractors against organisations on the grounds of size, political
persuasion, charitable status, etc.
We replied to you on 24 June 2009 to explain that there was no specific policy
that related to all the discriminatory grounds you quoted but that there was
Departmental policy on the procurement of goods and services, including
compliance with the EU public procurement directive and other regulatory
requirements. The Civil Service Code, the Civil Service core values and
procurement guidance were further explained and how contractor complaints
are handled in the Department.
In a follow up request of 3 July you asked the Department to confirm that you
had understood our initial response correctly. You deduced from our reply that
the Department of Health had no policy to prevent its staff or contracted staff
from discriminating against an organisation for personal reasons/preferences
(e.g. promoting a business whilst deliberately ignoring a charity offering the
same service).
We replied to you on the 31 July 2009 to explain how the tendering process
works within the Department and how we follow the European Public Sector
Procurement Directives.
In your request for an internal review you state, “Whilst I did have two
responses, they have not addressed the question asked”.
The Department has now carried out its internal review and has concluded that
the two responses you received fully addressed the questions that you
submitted. We answered your questions point-by-point and provided links to
relevant websites for more detailed information.
In your further request of 4 August you consider that we have misunderstood
your request for policy which would prevent staff from exercising personal
prejudice or discrimination against particular types of, or specific organisations.
You ask us to explain specifically what, if any, policies the Department has that
would prevent such discrimination.
In response to this further request we would like to offer the following advice
and information and re-emphasise some of the points we made in earlier
replies.
The Department is subject to compliance with the EU Procurement Directives,
as referred to in our response of 24 June 2009. The main principles of the
Directives include equal treatment and non-discrimination, proportionality,
mutual recognition, free movement of goods and freedom to provide services as
well as freedom of establishment. These principles apply to not only larger
tenders but to all public procurements undertaken by public authorities.
Further information is available at:
www.ogc.gov.uk/procurement_policy_and_practice_procurement_policy_and_a
pplication_of_eu_rules.asp
In addition, the Government Procurement Code of Good Practice sets out core
values and behaviours for all members of central civil government's supply
chain. The code identifies the following good practice for Government
departments:
'Being objective, even-handed and transparent when making decisions and
making sure that each competition is run without favouring any one supplier.
Making sure of genuine competition by selecting the appropriate number of
tenderers taking account of the legal requirement, and seeking to reduce
unnecessary costs (to the customer and potential suppliers) by restricting
competitions to a reasonable size.'
This code can be located at:
www.ogc.gov.uk/documents/codeofcusprac.pdf
A deskguide detailing our procurement processes is available on the
Department of Health’s website at:
www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsProcurem
ent/DH_093148
A summary of the Department’s policy for tendering processes is available on
its website at:
www.dh.gov.uk/en/Procurementandproposals/Procurement/Procurementpolicy/
DH_4066090
Finally, all our staff are expected to perform their duties in line with the Civil
Service Code. This code sets out the standards of behaviour that staff within the
Department must adhere to. The code refers to a number of core values, which
are:
• integrity - putting the obligations of public service above own personal
interests;
• honesty - being truthful and open;
• objectivity - basing advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the
evidence; and
• impartiality - acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving
equally well Governments of different political persuasions.
The code clearly states that staff must remain impartial and 'carry out
responsibilities in a way that is fair, just and equitable and reflects the Civil
Service commitment to equality and diversity' and 'must not act in a way that
unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests'.
If there are known breaches to the code, there are Human Resources
procedures in place in order to investigate any breach. The code is available on
the Civil Service website at:
www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/work/cscode/
To conclude, we would urge any prospective supplier who feels that they have
been disadvantaged by our procurement process to contact us with the specific
details to allow us to investigate the issue.
The internal review which you requested is now complete. We hope that you
are content with the outcome and with the additional information we have
provided in this response.
If you are not content with the outcome of this internal review, you have the right
to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely
Lynwen Paddy
Librarian,
Freedom of Information Team
