PFI (private finance initiative) – the mechanism for funding major infrastructure and construction projects, where completed assets remain, at least initially, in private ownership, and the cost of their construction is paid off, often with significant interest, over many years…

The SAP IT project, eLWIS (electronic merchandise management and information system) has been dropped by client, Lidl, after 7-years of analysis, development and trial rollouts. What happened, where does the blame lie and what now for the global retail brand…

Wouldn’t it be nice if client-vendor relationships always followed a clearly defined path with all parties focused on doing their best to live up to the business outcomes they agreed to at the outset? I can almost hear you nodding…

In a recent LinkedIn post, Joshua Reddaway‬, Director, Work and Pensions VFM and Head of Practice (Commercial and Contracting) at the UK National Audit Office‬ (NAO) talked about the new NAO report they had released on the government’s handling of…

Is this the end for PFI? In May this year an interesting article came out in the GCR (Global Construction Review) on the CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) website, titled ‘Bye-bye, PFI: UK signals effective end of private finance initiative’.…

In June we wrote an article titled NAO Report: NHS England and Capita Outsourcing Challenges, 4 Lessons which looked into the outsourcing contract issues faced by both NHS England and Capita when they tried to transform primary care support services for…

When the NAO produces an analysis of key aspects of major project relationships, it is always worth taking note. The NAO report titled ‘Survival Guide to Challenging Costs in Major Projects’ is no exception. The UK government is working on…

Outsourcing any aspect of your operations is rarely a walk in the park. For anyone who’s ever been through such a project, the challenges, misunderstandings and potential for clashes when handing responsibility to a third party are likely to have…

Problems can arise at any point within a major strategic partner service delivery relationship. Life with a strategic partner is very much like a marriage – after the first year or so, when the honeymoon period has become but a happy…

Outsourcing challenges, what can we learn from the recent NAO report into the seven-year contract NHS England entered into with Capita in 2015 and worth a reported £330m? The contract was to deliver the transformation of primary care support services for…

With Brexit, local elections, superpower posturing and international poisoning scandals to push the news media forward, the troubles caused by Carillion will seem like a long time ago to most. But, for the company’s employees, its suppliers whose businesses relied…

Many pressures beset those responsible for large-scale projects, forcing them to choose between a fastidious approach to procurement and project management, and meeting the time restrictions or budgetary constraints they are often required to work under. These are the circumstances…

There are two schools of thought on the best way to be recognised for your efforts in the workplace. Some are brought up to believe that hard work is all that’s needed – nose to the grindstone 12 to 16…

In some circumstances, the reality of strategic relationships can be far removed from the academic ideology of partnership perfection. There are many agenda, personality, and behavioural-led reasons why such relationships don’t always achieve everyone’s expectations. When we look for the…

If matters have come to a head and no matter what you’ve tried, your IT vendor is simply unable to deliver its solutions to your expectations, then you may have to begin the process of project termination. This decision should…

The government is under a great deal of strain at the moment; Brexit negotiations are ramping up, the local elections have just been held, and the latest controversy with Russia is reaching boiling point. So, it’s not surprising to have…

The day to day pressures of managing a PFI contract tends to lead one to focus on operational issues, yet the importance of devoting considerable time and energy to keeping on top of PFI costs cannot be undervalued. Take a…

Not every project can be handled in-house. There will be times when the resources, skill-sets and specific expertise of strategic suppliers will be needed and your business case will help you come to that conclusion. Once you have come to…

When reports from The Guardian stating that the “grim state of Capita’s financial position emerged just two weeks after the collapse of the construction firm Carillion”, one had to wonder what classified this as key news. News, maybe, but with the…

When things go wrong in outsourced relationships, the parties will often scratch their heads, blame the other side and then look to escalate or resolve the situation that has brought them to this point. Escalation could mean anything from resorting…

Npower has faced many challenges over the last few years. At the centre of the most recent of these is the reportedly long-running billing issues the company and its customers have suffered from since IBM installed a new SAP billing…

In October 2017 the NAO produced a report on The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s (NDA) Magnox contract after losses and legal proceedings necessitated an investigation into what went wrong, and why this £6bn contract was being cancelled at a nine-figure cost…

Many public sector projects and service delivery relationships have the potential to be lucrative undertakings for both strategic suppliers and their clients if approached in the right way. However, the popularity of such contracts also has a tendency to attract…

Leading government efficiency-focused think tank IfG (Institute for Government) and US project management association PMI (Project Management Institute) recently released a new report concerning PFI value, titled ‘How to get better private finance deals for infrastructure’. The report took an…

This article aims to offer some useful advice on how to handle the rather delicate negotiations required to provide clarity in what can be regarded as otherwise ambiguous contract terms, unclear expectations, roles and responsibilities between you and your supplier.…

The Carillion collapse story is big news right now. The announcement that the UK’s second largest construction firm is going into liquidation is bound to cause a media fuss, but in today’s political climate it has been supersized because this…

Since the revelations of the Labour Conference in September, analysts and pundits have been asking some important questions. They include, in this austerity lashed economic climate, where does Labour believe the potentially hundreds of billions will come from to pay…

In the words of Colin Leys, co-chair of the independent think tank, The Centre for Health and Public Interest (CHPI): “This money was designated by parliament to pay for patient care, not to pay dividends to a small number of…

If you are looking to renegotiate your outsourcing relationship, you are not alone: Outsourcing contract renegotiations are on the rise. Around 75% of all existing outsourcing relationships are renegotiated at some point during their lifetime according to Gartner Research.  And…

An increasing number of organisations and institutions are exploring the benefits of moving from their large single-supplier outsourcing relationships to the multi-supplier variety. Gavin Hall has outlined that in his experience, which reflects our own, the enhanced value and specialist expertise,…

While the theory behind outcome-based pricing models is nothing new, the penchant for establishing relationships specifically based on driving true added value is certainly growing in popularity with both vendors and clients. The reasons for this are simple. With suppliers…

This is the final article in a series of seven that reviewed the twenty issues highlighted by the National Audit Office (NAO) in their latest report on emerging best practice in commercial and contract management. Our articles have grouped these…

Early Contract Lifecycle Issues is the sixth article in our series of seven covering the key principles highlighted by the National Audit Office (NAO) in its report on emerging best practice in commercial and contract management. 140 projects were reviewed…

The National Audit Office’s 2016 report on commercial and contract management issues in the public sector offers up a ‘gold mine’ of useful information for organisations across the public-private spectrum. Its segmentation of all the issues they identified into seven…

If you are looking for ways in which to improve your commercial and contract management, then you are in good company. The National Audit Office (NAO) has spent years reviewing the public sector market to identify where weaknesses in processes…

This article focussing on market management and sourcing, is the latest in a series of seven tasked with reporting and commenting on the findings of the NAO’s 2016 report on insights and emerging best practice in commercial and contract management.…

The Conservative government has, for the best part of a decade, been fixated on the debt the country has got itself into. In his Spring Budget, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced that national debt stood at a figure of nearly £1.7…

In a recent article titled ‘NEW National Audit Office guidance for supplier operating standards that could change everything’, we took a look at the most recent update of the Government Commercial Function’s (GCF) eight ‘Commercial Operating Standards’ and discussed their…

The National Audit Office (NAO) recently published an insightful report on the state of commercial and contract management best practice in the public sector. We have developed a number of articles on the subject matter contained within this report –…

Reports suggest that it has not been a good year for global outsourcing giant Capita. What with the company’s first profit warning in September, reported project issues and what seems to be a weakening market across some of its core…