A Debate on the Merits of the Disclosure of Research Budgets To Tenderers

[Jon White]

SRA Initiative On Research Commissioning And Funding
Disclosure Of Research Budgets To Tenderers

(a debate begun in November 2006)

Introduction

Janet Lewis

In May 2004 the SRA set up a new Initiative to promote better practice in the commissioning and funding social research, building on the SRA’s report Commissioning social research: a good practice guide (November 2002). Since then a number of meetings of interested people have taken place; a report on a training curriculum for research commissioning has been produced (with ESRC funding); and the development of a website specifically on research commissioning has been set in train.

The discussions in the Initiative’s meetings have revealed that there are a number of areas of commissioning practice where there are competing views about what constitutes `good’ practice and considerable variations in the practice of different organisations. One of the aspects of commissioning about which there is considerable debate, and often a difference of view between researchers and commissioners, is whether invitations to tender should include a budget figure or ceiling. The Initiative group felt that it would be timely to open a debate on this issue.

Current available guidance is clear there are no strict rules in operation. The SRA’s good practice guide says it is good practice “to give competitors at least a ball-park idea of scale and/or budgetary constraints” (p 26) and suggests various ways in which this can be provided. But it also recognises that an organisation’s procurement rules can inhibit the disclosure of budgets. The GSR’s professional guidance on Procurement of Government Social Research (www.gsr.gov.uk/professional_guidance/procurement) says, in relation to whether to reveal a budget in the specification that “There is no hard and fast rule for this. OGC policy and legal framework is designed to ensure value for money. Each tendering exercise should be judged on whether this will be achieved by disclosing or withholding the available budget for a piece of work” (p 17).

Two experienced practitioners in the field kindly agreed to argue the pros and cons of disclosing the budget. Dr Dan Murphy is Head of Research and Evaluation at the Healthcare Commission having spent many years as a senior Government Social Researcher. He has put the argument for not disclosing budgets in public sector tenders. Professor Roger Jowell is head of the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys at City University and runs the European Social Survey. Prior to this he was the Director of Social and Community Planning Research, now the National Centre for Social Research.

The pros and cons of disclosure relate to what the SRA’s good practice guide on Commissioning Social Research (SRA November 2002) calls `direct competition’ ie. where two or more possible suppliers are asked to engage in a specific competitive process as a basis for awarding a particular contract. Typically a range of possible suppliers are invited to submit costed proposals from which a choice can be made. As the good practice guide makes clear, there are other ways of commissioning research competitively. In these other situations, where the competition is more indirect, it is difficult to envisage a situation where there are any advantages in withholding the budget figure. Equally, there are some situations, usually outside the public sector, where the size of the budget is the fixed point and the wish is to get as much research done for that figure as possible. Given the necessity of specifying either the scope of the project or the budget (although both might be even better), as Dan emphasises, if the scope of a project is uncertain, then giving a budget becomes imperative.

These advantages and disadvantages of including a budget in a tender document have been written as a stimulus to debate about the issues. The contributions are being put onto the Forum section of the SRA’s website to seek further comment and suggestion. It will remain on the website for a six month period – until the end of August 2007 – at which point the key issues will be summarised and areas of agreement and disagreement identified.

The full document covering the advantages and disadvantages of this debate is attached for viewing/download.

[Julie Watt]

I have been commissioning evaluation for 2 and half years and research for about a year now, and my experience has been that responses rates to invitation to tenders is higher for those ITTs issued with indicative budget included, compared to lower response to ITTs for those where the budget figure is excluded. So as a commissioner of research/evaluation work I recommend internally to my colleagues in my organisation that it is more helpful to include indicative budget information where available.

[dryork]

Originally Posted by Julie Watt

I have been commissioning evaluation for 2 and half years and research for about a year now, and my experience has been that responses rates to invitation to tenders is higher for those ITTs issued with indicative budget included, compared to lower response to ITTs for those where the budget figure is excluded. So as a commissioner of research/evaluation work I recommend internally to my colleagues in my organisation that it is more helpful to include indicative budget information where available.

As someone sitting on the 'other side of the fence', can I say that indicative budgets are very helpful indeed. If, for example, an ITT requires the contractor to evaluate the effectivenes of a particular initiaitve or project, an indicative budget helps to give some idea of the of both the breadth and the depth of research required.

My agency has missed out more than once by setting costs far higher or lower than commissioners anticipated with the commensurate inappropiate depth of research proposed.

I can understand that some people believe that setting indicative budgets can have drawbacks in that it tends to set a minmium budget, but, although different universities, research instituions and commercial agencies do have differeing costs, they are almost always similar in terms of the day rates etc. for professional personnel. Thus, for the reasons I have stated above, I would certainly favour indicative budgets.

DrYork