- Bathwick Grange
Bathwick Hill
Bath, Somerset
BA2 6HA
United Kingdom - +447973465773
- Public Procurement, Legal Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Critical Realism, Complexity, Public Law, and 24 moreSocial Procurement, Public Private Partnerships, Social Impact Bonds, Public Policy, International Human Rights Law, Freedom of Information, Economics of Corruption, Anti-Corruption, White Collar Crime, Public Sector Reform, Political Economy, Public Economics, Development Economics, Democratic Theory, Empathy, Plantation economy, Complexity Theory, Complex Systems Science, Complex Adaptive Systems, Systems Theory, Complex Systems, Systems Thinking, Chaos/Complexity Theory, and Embodied Cognitionedit
- Margaret specialises in public procurement law, anti-corruption and governance and has practised in the Commonwealth ... moreMargaret specialises in public procurement law, anti-corruption and governance and has practised in the Commonwealth Caribbean since 1995. Margaret has a doctorate in policy research from the Institute for Policy Research, University of Bath, United Kingdom. My current research project explores lessons from the COVID-19 PPE procurement crisis employing theoretical frames at the intersection of Law & Political Economy (LPE), public procurement policy and philosophy of science.edit
The regulation of Public Procurement (PP) has gained strategic focus for policy makers over the last forty years. Reports, worldwide, of corruption, waste, and mismanagement in PP during the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic... more
The regulation of Public Procurement (PP) has gained strategic focus for policy makers over the last forty years. Reports, worldwide, of corruption, waste, and mismanagement in PP during the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic stimulated a plethora of research on root causes and lessons learned. The dominant consensus is that PP governance systems worked well and there was no need for "radical change". This study challenges this consensus and investigates the normative-ethical orientation of modern Public Procurement Governance Systems (PPGSs) and its' possible role in the COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) procurement crisis. Employing the philosophical tools of transcendental argumentation and immanent critique within Bhaskar's metaRealist epistemological framework, PP and PP Law (PPL) ontologies are examined sequentially, and an epistemic gap is identified between what PP is in reality (de facto) and how it is codified in law (de jure). A theory of the modern PPGS, (exemplified by the UN Model Law on the Procurement of Goods, Works, and Services (2011) as an antirealist form of "Neoliberal Legality" is advanced. The theory is then tested deductively in two phases first in law and then in practice. First, through a systematic, comparative law analysis identifying and tracing indicators of Neoliberal Ethical Orientation (NEO) in the developments of PPL specifically in UK (England and Wales), and the Post-Slavery, Post-Colonial, English-speaking states of the CARICOM over a period of forty years (1980-2020). Secondly, the relationship (if any) between the normative-ethical orientation in the design of the modern PPGS immediately prior to the COVID-19 procurement crisis and the lack of public sector readiness to meet the PPE procurement crisis in the earliest stages of the pandemic, is then explored. Interview data from public procurement advisors and experts in seven (7) jurisdictions: UK, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Bahamas, Lebanon, US, and South Africa was collected to examine the way in which the procurement of PPE was governed in practice immediately prior to January 2020 and why. The study found that despite variations in PPGS design in the UK and CARICOM, a reductive, materialist, conceptualization of value was encoded therein. Moreover, the exploration of PP in practice revealed that in all jurisdictions, immediately prior to January 2020, PPE was considered a "non-critical" item and therefore did not attract strategic supply chain risk and inventory management, nor supply chain auditing. Ultimately, the study aims to (i) explicate and problematize the dominant normative-ethical orientation underpinning modern PPGS design (ii) explore its possible causal influence on public sector readiness in the earliest stages of the pandemic and (iii) query whether, despite the dominant consensus in the field, the COVID-19 PPE crisis instantiates the need to rethink the normative-ethical orientation of the design of modern public procurement governance systems.
Research Interests:
The COVID-19 global pandemic has spurred the disintegration of an already frustrating climate for international trade cooperation. The demand for COVID-19 related goods and services has brought to the forefront the crucial challenge... more
The COVID-19 global pandemic has spurred the disintegration of an already frustrating climate
for international trade cooperation. The demand for COVID-19 related goods and services has
brought to the forefront the crucial challenge experienced by governments having to manage
tensions between the sometimes divergent commitments to protecting national health interests and
international trade cooperation. This paper highlights government procurement as an underutilized
potential lever for addressing the challenge of equitable access to essential medical goods in times
of crisis. By reference to policy responses collected by the Global COVID-19 Policy Response
(GCPR) research initiative, the paper questions the exclusion of government procurement
provisions in trade agreements in times of crisis. The authors argue for (i) the development and
inclusion of Model ‘Crisis’ Procurement provisions in trade agreements and (ii) the leveraging of
technological solutions like the GCPR in order to improve government transparency and
cooperation in times of crisis.
for international trade cooperation. The demand for COVID-19 related goods and services has
brought to the forefront the crucial challenge experienced by governments having to manage
tensions between the sometimes divergent commitments to protecting national health interests and
international trade cooperation. This paper highlights government procurement as an underutilized
potential lever for addressing the challenge of equitable access to essential medical goods in times
of crisis. By reference to policy responses collected by the Global COVID-19 Policy Response
(GCPR) research initiative, the paper questions the exclusion of government procurement
provisions in trade agreements in times of crisis. The authors argue for (i) the development and
inclusion of Model ‘Crisis’ Procurement provisions in trade agreements and (ii) the leveraging of
technological solutions like the GCPR in order to improve government transparency and
cooperation in times of crisis.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
On 25th June 2010 the Public Procurement and Disposal of Property Bill 2010 and the National Tenders Board Bill 1997 were laid in the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago. The bills were forwarded to the newly established Joint Select... more
On 25th June 2010 the Public Procurement and Disposal of Property Bill 2010 and the National Tenders Board Bill 1997 were laid in the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago. The bills were forwarded to the newly established Joint Select Committee for Public Procurement Reform and on December 6th 2010, the said Committee issued a Call for Submissions from Stakeholders. This paper is submitted in response to this Call.
