back to article Boss leaves Buying Solutions, writing on the wall?

Alison Littley, chief executive of Buying Solutions, is leaving the quango which was meant to sort out central government IT procurement and other services. A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: "We can confirm that Alison Littley has announced her decision to move on from Buying Solutions, following five years as its Chief …

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  1. b-a-r-k-i-n-g-m-a-d
    Grenade

    Sinking ship?

    As title.

  2. Glenn Charles
    Flame

    Buying Solutions

    For Sinking Governments...maybe they can trade deficits and loans.

    [Aimed at all governments, of whatever ideology.]

  3. SourceDogg

    Centralised Procurement Simply Doesn't Work

    I'm not suprised Alison is leaving & I think the March review will be very unfavourable.

    Centralised Procurement is extremely politically attractive as it promises instant savings from aggregating spend, so buyers can bargain hard with Suppliers and reduce unit costs. Economies of Scale being the academic term.

    As with most broad government strokes there is usually a complete overestimation of the benefits, an underestimation of the complexities involved and a complete failure to factor in administrative costs, opportunity costs, change management and other factors into the equation.

    Centralising Procurement in this way has at it's core an assumption or belief that the individual organisations cannot be relied on to make decisions in the overall public interest & will act solely in their own self interest (a philosophy borrowed from conservative economics).

    However, is this true? Is it a black & white issue - Centralised or Chaos? I think there is to mis-quote Tony Blair a 'Third way'. If procurement managers in the individual departments/organisations are given the proper next generation tools, such as SourceDogg.com and TRUSTED, they will procure with a strategy that maximises the Service Quality of their organisation while balancing the Value for Money for the Public overall. They will combine their spend on categories - but only when it makes sense to do this - not blindly.

    My advice in a line: **Scrap Buying Solutions & equip, support & trust your people** (procurement in the individual organisations).

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