Tag Archives: politics and procurement
Francis Maude at PASC – select committee digs into UK government procurement
The UK parliament’s Public Administration Select Committee held the final hearing of their investigation into public sector procurement this week, and appropriately their witness was Francis Maude, the Minister with responsibility for the subject. As we’ve said many times, he is more interested in and knowledgeable about procurement than any other Minister we’ve had, and his hour or so on the topic was low key in style but quite illuminating. He got some good questioning from Bernard Jenkin, the Chair, but some of the other Committee members were poor in terms of their lack of any real insight or challenge. [...]
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Crown Commercial Representatives – 99 Problems (well, 9 issues anyway)
So , what do we think about the UK government’s appointment of new Crown Commercial Representatives? Here are a few questions. Not 99 problems maybe, as Jay-Z would put it, but certainly 9 issues. 1. Is there still significant cost to be taken out of government contracts, or has the first wave of CCR activity generated most of the benefit already? 2. Are the major suppliers going to feel even more victimised by getting set upon by these “heavies”, and less likely to offer any innovation to the government – will they just put “UK Government” firmly in the “cash [...]
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The NHS Procurement Strategy – a nation (still) waits
So what’s happened to the UK’s National Health Service Procurement strategy? The story so far… (you might want to get a cup of coffee and settle down, this might be a long one). April 2012 At a conference in Manchester, the new NHS procurement strategy is going to be announced. Instead, the excellent Beth Loudon from Department of Health has to explain that top NHS management wanted more discussion with the market, and more “meat” in the strategy so there would be a delay whilst… May 2012 NHS appoints Sir Ian Carruthers to conduct a “call for evidence” to help [...]
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Crown Commercial Representatives – male, pale and … very successful businessmen
If you’re thinking that we haven’t exactly been hot off the press with reporting on the appointment of six more UK government “Crown Commercial Representatives”, you’d be right. that’s because I’ve been working out just what exactly I think about it… They’re joining Cabinet Office to help central government manage their largest suppliers, and negotiate further savings, particularly in IT related areas. We understand they are in the main taking over work from current government CPOs, who have been doing this CCR role in addition to their departmental day jobs for the last couple of years. The roles were widely [...]
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Down the procurement pub – CIPS, the cost of risk management and the big UK / EU debate
So got my latest copy of Supply Management yesterday. I haven’t read all the articles yet, but there is content in this edition that all CIPS members should read. (Some of it is on-line as well of course. ) That includes a description of the new Congress, the body chaired by Melinda Johnson that represents members’ interests to the Institute. I was pleased to see that all the elected Congress delegates have got their email addresses on the CIPS website so members can contact them, although it has been left fairly loose in terms of how exactly that contact might [...]
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UK Government procurement – the anti-centralisation fightback starts!
After our Yes Minister homage earlier this week (here and here), covering the further centralisation of procurement in UK Government, it was interesting to see yesterday what might be the beginnings of a fight back by the departments against the increasingly ambitious and controlling Cabinet Office. Someone – or several someones – has obviously fed Sue Cameron at the Telegraph with some juicy titbits of anti-Cabinet Office information / propaganda (take your pick, depending with whom your sympathies lie). This is not surprising after the incredibly one-sided Times feature recently, that gave two pages over to what I can only [...]
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Yes Minister – Three Cheers for the Complex Transactions Group!
(Part 2 of our latest homage to the brilliant Yes Minster and Yes Prime Minister series, written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. Part 1 is here). So Minister, you raised the new Cabinet Office Complex Transactions Group. This is the team who are going to help us with complex IT projects. I understand they were going to call themselves the “Big Deal” team until someone pointed out this sounded a little too much like a TV game show for comfort. - So are you against that idea, Humphrey? More interference from Cabinet Office. and this time it isn’t just [...]
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Yes Minister – Sir Humphrey raises his glass to centralised government Procurement
(Especially for the UK Bank Holiday – our latest homage to the brilliant Yes Minster and Yes Prime Minister series, written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn). - Humphrey, do come in. Thank you Minister. I’ve brought Colin with me. Colin is our Commercial Director. - Really? I have a Commercial Director? Yes, we used to call him Head of Purchasing but we thought Commercial sounded more… dynamic and twenty-first century somehow. - Well it’s nice to meet you Colin. Now, this is all about the new Cabinet Office plans for greater centralisation of procurement isn’t it? Francis Maude, master [...]
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Liam Maxwell and the Eton connection – Spend Matters ahead of the news again!
A bit of politics – with a slight procurement connection – for this Bank Holiday weekend! There’s a fuss in the UK press after the elections last week around whether David Cameron is surrounding himself with too many old Etonians – chaps from his school like recent appointees Jo Johnson and Jesse Norman. Now the press have got hold of the fact that the Government’s Chief Technology Office, Liam Maxwell, was Head of IT at Eton School. The London Evening Standard yesterday reported this and said: But how has Maxwell’s Etonian connection slipped by so unnoticed? Sorry, it certainly wasn’t [...]
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Why the MOD DE&S GoCo probably won’t happen
We featured the potential “GoCo” (government owned, contractor operated) solution for the Defence Equipment and Support organisation (DE&S) earlier this week after the UK government announced the next phase of the work towards this possible end for the Ministry of Defence’s procurement and logistics organization. “Throughout the next 12 months, MOD will continue to work with the Treasury and the Cabinet Office on the ‘DE&S+’ option to explore the extent of change that could be delivered whilst keeping the organisation fully within the boundaries of the public sector. In parallel, a commercial process will be launched today that will enable [...]
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A decision to delay the decision about MOD procurement as DE&S uncertainty continues
Last week, Philip Hammond, the UK’s Defence Minister, announced the next stage in the move towards turning the MOD’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organisation into a “GoCo” – a government owned, contractor operated entity. This whole initiative has been dragging on now for years . Bernard Gray, the architect of the plan, joined MOD in January 2011 but wrote his report (the beginning of this whole debate) in 2009, so it has taken some time just to get to this point of announcing – well, announcing that no real decision will be made for another year (at least)! Whilst [...]
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Down the Procurement Pub – CIPS Surrey, a Times hagiography , and better UK GDP numbers
Thanks to everyone who came to the YMCA Guildford (all together now, “Y M C A – ay”) last night for my presentation to the CIPS Surrey Branch It was a beautiful evening, so I fully expected a dropout rate of around 90% but actually it wasn’t a bad turnout, with around 30 people turning up – thanks to all of them. We discussed deep issues around supplier management and supplier life cycle approaches to procurement, and less deep around horsemeat, green potatoes and dodgy management consultants! We’ll come back next week to some of the interesting discussion about the [...]
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Civil Service Capabilities Plan – Procurement high on the agenda, but risks as well?
Yesterday we published our view of the The UK Civil Service Reform capabilities plan – “Meeting the challenge of change”, which had a lot of focus on procurement and some very positive moves. But the further steps towards centralising Whitehall procurement do also give a few causes for concern. Here are three issues which balance the undoubted positives. 1. The first rule of setting procurement strategy is that it must align with the wider organisational strategy, aims and objectives. Does the emerging more centralised procurement approach meet that requirement? Well, we might argue that value for money is fundamental at [...]
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Civil Service Capabilities Plan – Procurement high on the agenda
The Civil Service Reform capabilities plan – “Meeting the challenge of change”, published last week, has a very strong focus on procurement. That’s great in many ways for our profession, although there is a sting in this particular tail. There is more on project and programme management, digital strategies and general career development, but for obvious reasons we’ll focus on the procurement elements today and tomorrow. The document stresses that improvement in commercial skills needs to cover a large number of people, not just those badged as procurement experts. And the recognition that these skills that are required also go [...]
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Fit for Life – and creating contract incentives in a public sector context
The death of Baroness Thatcher has drawn attention to one of the changes she drove – the greater involvement of the private sector in the business of government, including delivery of services to the citizen that had previously been the preserve of public sector employees. That trend continues today. We’ve written about private prisons, about the Work Programme with private and third sector firms helping get people into jobs, and the potential quasi-privatisation of military procurement and logistics. Another interesting example was being discussed in the media last week, and it makes a good case study, illustrating why many of [...]
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UK public procurement – the UK Government and large suppliers fall out
We wrote extensively about the recent Public Administration Select Committee session on procurement, with Bill Crothers (government CPO) and his Cabinet Office colleagues (here is the last of our three posts). There was some good and interesting debate, but I was left with just a feeling that something had been missing. And when I mulled it over later, it seemed that what was lacking was a sense of suppliers actually being able to help government to achieve key policy goals. That aim sits at the heart of any political party’s agenda when it comes down to it. Most of the [...]
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- Dark Procurement – ethics and moral dilemmas : Gordon Murray said: Excuse the poor English in the previous reply, that should have been: Can you just confirm... more
- Dark Procurement – ethics and moral dilemmas : Gordon Murray said: Hi, B&T, can you just confirm that you would pay an additional £1m for something the ... more
- From Hubris to High Court (almost) – The Story of Southwest One (Part 1) : James Garrett said: That the wheels came off Southwest One was never a surprise to those who followed its shak... more
- From Hubris to High Court (almost) – The Story of Southwest One (Part 1) : Prof Dexter Whitfield said: I find the idea that the Conservatives 'sabotaged' the contract as fanciful and plainly in... more
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