Merlin Standard

Mention the Merlin Standard to any provider lately and they roll their eyes. I think it was supposed to help beef up the Code of Conduct a bit by ensuring Primes stuck to it, but it just seems to have morphed into a checklist of things to do which doesn't really prove anything, monitored ("inspected"?) by of all people Carley Consult, who may well be inspecting the veracity of a bid they wrote in the first place, or of a company that they may be touting for business from. No disrespect to Jim et al, but if DWP had actually set out to construct a system that didn't produce the outcomes they said they were after, they couldn't do better than Merlin, as it stands.

Conflictointerestumus!