Supplier status changed in mysterious circumstances

My firm was made preferred supplier by a local authority commissioning several supported living developments for people with disabilities from RSLs. One of the RSLs invited quotes for telecare from three suppliers including us and a market leader. The market leader won the work. We were not informed of the result and followed up with the building contractor who told us that our bid had been price adjusted (without our knowledge). It had been the cheapest initially until the nonsensical 'adjustment' made it more expensive. The price adjustments were clearly partial since on top of telecare costs, the successful supplier’s system involved additional costs of wiring infrastructure which its system required but ours did not, and this was excluded from the analysis.

We checked the RSL's website and found an advertisement for the telecare supplier (I notice some local authority websites also advertise or provide links to this supplier).

Our complaint to the commissioning local authority was peremptorily dismissed on the grounds that it was not their responsibility, even though they were providing most of the capital funding for the development.

The telecare business on these contracts alone could be worth over a quarter of a million pounds. I hope that people being entertained by companies at the forthcoming conference dinner realise that ultimately this largesse is being funded by taxpayers who are probably paying over the odds for the products and services which have probably been unfairly protected from competition on price or quality.