Innovators often want to solve the problems that they foresee happening in the future. They tend to think things are changing. There are going to be new problems tomorrow - here's our way of firstly avoiding those problems, or solving them. Local authorities tend to think we have a problem today, we need a tool to fix that problem. They'll describe it in great detail and then go out and procure it using modern procurement methods which are fairly opaque.
You can do a great job for a local authority today but it gives you no advantage in getting new business from them tomorrow. The procurement process doesn't motivate innovators.
One solution, said Paul, might be to give councils more time to risk getting things wrong, learn and have another go. It would help to have all-out elections every four years rather than one-third changes each year.
