How ethical are your walls? Obiter asks in the context of the Ministry of Justice’s procurement policy. In an attempt to emerge from its long, sorry history of computer projects, the ministry has begun breaking up its procurements into so-called ‘towers’. The snag is that there aren’t enough bidders to ensure that each tower goes to a different company.

So the ministry’s latest procurement, for £109m worth of software service, allows existing contractors to bid so long as they can demonstrate that ‘appropriate ethical walls’ are in place. It seems this is now the preferred term for Chinese wall, which Obiter always thought a daft expression anyway. Does anyone have a better one? 

 

 

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