We have come a very long way since the early days of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market, but how much: has really changed for the better; and conversely, have ‘improvements’ been seen to have, in reality, just papered over…

You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been, as they say. So, by taking a look back at the origins of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and how the outsourcing market has evolved and…

In July the NAO published a cross-governmental lessons-learned report dedicated to the question of how to ensure that when implementing digital change, major projects have a greater opportunity to achieve a positive outcome. It’s a vital document, seeing as the…

Your Challenge – You are overseeing a major project that involves a significant service delivery transformation or the procurement of a complex IT solution. You may be engaging in a new strategic supplier relationship or need to improve one that is…

Articles on the subject of a successful outsourcing partnership tend to deal with the timeline in segments – some will talk about essentials at the inception stage, while others will wax lyrical about ways to keep your supplier on your…

While some people revel in breaking through established boundaries, the vast majority would prefer the stability and relative comfort of the status quo. Change may befall an organisation in a myriad of ways, but all are likely to bring with…

They say that in a crisis you find out who you really are. In fact, US founding father, Thomas Paine said it far more eloquently than that in 1776 when he wrote: “These are the times that try men’s souls.…

A research report on ‘The value of supplier codes of conduct: supporting transparency and improving performance’, co-authored by sustainability, business and human rights consultancy Ardea International and the University of Westminster Business School, has presented some interesting analysis. It includes…

In the public sector, procurement should have, at its foundation, strictly process-orientated procedures, with clear supplemental processes to make sure that solutions and services purchased are fit for purpose, not just that they follow legal procurement compliance. However, if those…

It was reported that EY has been the focus of a request by the charity, ‘Spotlight on Corruption’ (SoC), to the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) – the government’s procurement body – for EY to be banned from bidding on any…

The Client-Side PFI Manager is the person in the client organisation with direct responsibility for managing the operational PFI contract. The management of operational PFI contracts consists of frequent, ad hoc and periodic activities. Frequent activities are those that need…

In March The Times reported that outsourcing giant Capita was continuing to go through a troubling period, with significant falls in revenues and headline profits necessitating further internal organisational changes. This may not be either surprising or hugely troubling for…

When times are tough, as they certainly have been over the last year, people tend towards one of two camps – those who are predominantly inward-looking, protecting what’s theirs (their home, their family, their friends), and those who are predominantly…

When public sector procurement is mentioned, it is often to discuss the complexities of compliance with strict processes and procedures and the challenges which may arise holistically when these are not followed as fastidiously as they might have been. Thoughts…

New York-based turnaround management specialists, Alvarez & Marsal, were appointed as administrators of NMC Health after irregularities were discovered in the company’s accounts. By the end of 2020, it was reported they had issued a ‘preliminary notice’ of a potential…

In this article we explain the why, what and how of the PFI Operations Manual – the cornerstone of effective and consistent day to day contract management. The typical length of a PFI contract (20-30 years), makes it extremely unlikely…

Optics are important in today’s commercial world – how you ‘look’ in the eyes of your consumer matters, more than ever before. Companies invest heavily in developing their audience’s perception of their brand – the ethics, morality and mission that…

When the National Audit Office (NAO) conducted a departmental overview of the Home Office, issues were raised about the way it managed its £3 billion a year spend on goods and services. These issues were about how challenges on these…

The cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) has reportedly ostracised senior government officials for holding back evidence – by as much as eight months – that Europe’s biggest infrastructure project, HS2, was in serious financial difficulty and they allegedly knew full…

What could have been hailed as a success story of a public sector project brought in on time, has sadly found its way into the media spotlight for costs that have shot well past budget expectations. The report also indicates…

It was only last month that we were highlighting reports of the multibillion-pound deal that was to see US security company Allied Universal win out over rival GardaWorld to gain the G4S board’s approval to buy the company. With £3.8bn…

When the Grenfell Tower Inquiry resumed last year, four shocking key facts were revealed about the blaze that still reverberate in most Londoner’s memories. We outline the revelations highlighted in a recent Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) article…

In this final article on the recent National Audit Office (NAO) report surveying the public sector’s readiness for responsibility over hundreds of PFI contracts as they come to an end, we look at the recommendations that were put forward to…

A Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is a public private partnership, used to finance the creation and maintenance of major public sector projects in the UK since the 1990s. In 2018, the government announced that it would no longer be using…

“After lengthy, fully contested proceedings, the Tribunal concluded that the audit work fell significantly short of the standards expected of an audit firm and its partners.” These are reportedly the words of the Financial Reporting Council’s Executive Counsel Elizabeth Barrett…

Holiday travel is one thing there’s not much of right now. The pandemic has not only put paid to most people’s dreams of relaxing on a golden beach this year, but it has put many in the travel sector in…

When we are asked to realign a complex service delivery relationship, we often find that each stakeholder has a slightly different definition of what a ‘strategy’ should look like. The most effective way to think of a strategy is as…

Disputes can often be regarded as the roadblock that prevents strategic supplier relationships from living up to their potential. They are the result of a collapse of commercial trust, poor communication and misaligned service delivery that signifies the breakdown of…

Last month we wrote about G4S’s resistance to GardaWorld’s £3bn hostile takeover bid, saying that the board had “… unanimously rejected this offer as it continues to significantly undervalue the company”. However, The Times now informs us that rival US…

An Ofcom investigation, which has been going on since June, has concluded that in their provisional view, Motorola Solutions UK and Sepura have broken UK and EU competition law during what should have been a competitive procurement process by UK…

Despite the protestations of G4S in public, the organisation’s actions suggest the possibility of a warmer reception behind the scenes to Allied Universal’s approaches, according to reports in The Times last month. The appointment of an independent consultant as a…

Earlier this year, the National Audit Office (NAO) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) produced critical reports on the state of the UK’s nuclear deterrent programme. A £1.35bn increase in costs over three projects was put down to a number…

This month the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) released a critical report on two decades of NHS failure to get its IT projects right. This is summed up at the opener of the report “The Department [Department of Health and Social…

When Strategic Suppliers represent themselves as a specialist in the services you would like them to manage, the law implies certain obligations and responsibilities upon those suppliers, (their Expert Responsibilities) even if those responsibilities aren’t documented in any written contract terms or schedules…

In the pursuit of successful strategic supplier relationships, the old adage ‘prevention is the best cure’ comes to mind frequently, so the question of how to minimise and mitigate procurement risk is a common one. The fact is that most…

The most successful service delivery relationships have business case development at their core, ensuring that they clearly articulate the specifics of what will change in the organisation once the business objectives or outcomes have been achieved. A sound business case will identify what operational, financial…

Is there an inherent potential for a conflict of interest when the same firm of accountants that audits a company’s accounts also does a considerable amount of consultancy work for them? Their professional standards body states these organisations have a…

Suppliers come in all stripes. Some operate as genuine partners – identifying ever-more effective operating practices often, without being asked. In these types of strategic relationships, everyone wins: the clients/service users win because they benefit from ongoing reductions in business-as-usual…

The urge to exit a failed strategic supplier or outsourcing relationship can be so strong that clients leap to instruct their lawyers before they have fully assessed the operational (as opposed to contractual) risks of getting out of a failed contract, early. In short, they do not…

As strategic and trusted supplier partners, the ‘big four’ – PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY – take on a significant percentage of the audit work the market has to offer. Reportedly around 97% of all FTSE 350 companies have audit…