There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially with consultants or bidders. Someone has to pay. Your editorial about school bids urges less competition and less regulation. Three bids are the minimum basis for competitive tenders to indicate the area of price. Extend your logic, why have any bids at all? Answer: because it costs more.

There would be no incentive, no market, competition, no comparison. The amount spent on bids is tiny in comparison with the total expenditure of 拢45bn. The 拢6m quote is double the old PFI deals, because it is paying for the unsatisfactory work produced before. You are also paying for the previous 鈥渟avings鈥� made by cutting public bureaucracy.

This is similar to extinguishing the entire police force, pocketing the temporary savings and setting no regulations, while the cost of crime, as with poorly designed and built projects, is passed on to society.

Peter Somers, London

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