fe4d7be0_nance_Survey_official_response__The_Ordnance_Survey_replies___
[The Guardian says...] Yesterday, the government was due to receive bids for a 20m contract to provide geographical information to Whitehall bodies. In theory, it is an open competition. In practice, the largest part of the contract, for “large scale data”, is unlikely to go to anyone else: the contract specifies that the winner must have large-scale maps in place within six weeks of the start of a five-year deal.
We cannot find any other reference in the public domain to the six-week specification. However, on the IGGI web site, the ODPM posted a response to a market sounding question discussing the tender. An unnamed organisation said: “The procurement must allow enough time between contract award and provision date to allow the cartographic work to be completed.” The ODPM responded: “We seek to balance the benefits of competition in the marketplace with the need to ensure continuity of data supply to PGA members. Any realistic timeframes will be considered as part of the tender evaluation.”
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