We’d have changed pitch if facts were made clear

I was interested to read your news story about the progress of the NHS University procurement (DW 12 February). We didn’t make it through to the final stage, and have no complaints about that, however, if we had, we would have dropped out when it turned into a free pitch.

OJEC was mentioned in your article and this is not the first time that procurement processes have turned into free pitches without that fact being made clear from the beginning.

It seems that this trend is spreading in the public sector; my opinion is that more consultancies should make a stand against it.

It’s the same old story – clients want something for nothing (without realising that in reality they have to pay for it eventually) and, amazingly, some consultancies are also happy to give their ideas away for nothing.

We at Homer Creative want to work in the public sector – not just for the money, but because we want to contribute.

However, if we start pitching for free we will immediately have to increase our prices in order to cover the extra cost.

Julian Grice of The Team gave some principles for working with the public sector (Letters, DW 12 February).

But it is a pity that he didn’t include getting rid of free-pitching as one of them. I do not believe that free-pitching helps in developing partnerships with clients – far from it.

Brian Homer

Managing director

Homer Creative

Birmingham B1 3JH