The British Council is inviting bids from companies to provide them with a full service – site design, data collection and (especially) media sales – in respect of the Education UK web site. Here are some questions that any prospective bidder should get answers to before making any sort of material commitment.
1. The press reports that the BC has unveiled a £1.5 million budget for this. Since there is no mention of this, or indeed figures of any kind, in the pre-qualification questionnaire – may we have details of the budget? Is this taxpayers’ money? To what authority is the project accountable?
2. For the same purpose in September 2001 the British Council contracted a £100 company, Education Websites Ltd, which was incorporated in the same month. If so much accounting information and history is required now, why was it not required then? Why was the liability of the contractor only £100, and will it be the same this time? What happened to Education Websites Ltd?
3. When the British Council last time contracted a £100 company, why did it announce a contractual arrangement with a consortium of Hotcourses, UCAS, CSU and Yahoo? Why does the actual contract signed specifically exclude UCAS and CSU, and make no mention at all of Yahoo?
4. The press reports that the agreements are to last for 2 years. Does the British Council intend to include a clause, as last time, which stipulates that the data collected will belong to both parties, and can be licensed by either party after termination? Would I not be investing 2 years of my company’s time and money for the British Council to then be able to cream it off for themselves?
5. The British Council asks for a history of the bidders’ disputes. Will the British Council in return say how many disputes they are currently involved in, what court cases are pending in which countries, and specifically whether they have any outstanding disputes in respect of their web arrangements?
6. The British Council asks for details of company structure. Will the British Council outline the structure that will be used to manage this contract, and give a specific undertaking that their managers will not be involved in any project where there is clear conflict of interest?
7. Most companies see their understanding of their market as being critical to their success. When, in the evaluation criteria which the British Council proposes to use, only 5% weighting is assigned to “Understanding Education UK and its audiences”, is it because the British Council understands its market? Or is it because it does not?
8. When the British Council (“The Authority”!) says that it “intends to award any contract based on the most economically advantageous offer”, would it be fair to conclude that this contract has nothing to do with public service and everything to do with obtaining maximum revenues for the British Council from British educational institutions?
9. What would be a full and honest answer to Question 96 asked at the FAC on October 15th by John Horam MP? Is there a danger we should beware of?
10. Why should we commit our company’s resources on the back of such a chronic failure? Why after 7 years has only one FE College beginning with A signed up for paid services? Only one independent college beginning with S and only one independent school beginning with B? Why even where the British Council has obtained significant monopoly powers, in the EFL sector, have only about a third of course providers signed up? Here , here or here?
I also have a question for the British Council. Why are you proceeding with this before clearing up the mess you made last time?
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