Auditel Consultant:
Lee Freeman

Prudence an update and the Staffordshire Swing!!

29 Jul 2010 | Filed under: cost management, golf, The Budget

Well it has been a few days since my last blog, as I have had a couple of days away from the office on the “Staffordshire Swing”. No this is not some excuse for illicit parties but a couple of days of golf on the Volvo Amateur Tour. Superbly organised by David Hughes and his team, the Volvo Amateur Tour gives normal club golfers like myself the chance to play top UK courses with a competitive edge. The two days were superb, both courses at Beau Desert and Enville offered great golf and hospitality, although I must admit 72 holes in 2 days is now very taxing, note to self – GET FIT. Profitable too as a 3^rd on Monday earned some well needed coin even if that was given away on Tuesday losing the blind match play to my travelling companion.

For those of you who have just been bored rigid back to the more exciting stuff. I see that the cost cutting exercise announced in the Emergency Budget has been in the news again. No sooner has one company blamed this exercise for their profit warning, then another sees it as a huge opportunity.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/cpi/7905255/Capita-forecasts-an-uptick-in-outsourcing-from-public-sector.html

I noted that some of the comments associated with Paul Pindar the Capita chief executive are in line with my own, which I am sure you are now familiar with, in that the key to the success of this project is getting the right people to do the right job and not just relying on the public sector to achieve these cuts.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/damianreece/7905669/Outsourcing-will-allow-the-state-to-deliver-more-for-less-at-long-last.html

Paul also makes various comments concerning the procurement process that the public sector tends to go through that I am in complete agreement with. Why this process should be so long and drawn out is beyond me, if a private company took as long as Government departments do to award contracts that business would most likely be out of business before the decision is made. I know a lot of my fellow affiliates at Auditel have stopped offering our services to the public sector due to the huge amount of red tape that needs to be gone through first. Perhaps there is the biggest saving that could be made, just think of all the wasted time and effort that goes into such a lengthy process. I have in fact today written to my MP on this very matter!!

And finally I see that the Government has now announced the date for the auction of next generation mobile licences. If half as successful as before that should help balance the books a bit!! The reason for the delay, mobile phone companies arguing amongst themselves, as to how the process should work!! Government procurement is reverse then, well perhaps it will do them good to have a taste of their own medicine.