Given the length and scope of PFI contracts, change is inevitable, so the effective administration of PFI change management, in terms of both the change process and its associated costs, is fundamental to successful PFI contract management. In this article…

A dispute that erupted in the first half of last year is once again in the news media. Stagecoach, one of a number of public transport providers in the UK and US, took the Department for Transport (DfT) to court…

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…

In November the National Audit Office (NAO) released a new report on contract management, and because we found it so insightful we’ve decided to dedicate a few articles to the subject and to the findings of the report. This particular…

Radiotherapy is crucial to the treatment of up to 40% of all cancer patients. However, it’s recently been reported that deaths may well have resulted from radiotherapy equipment upgrade delays experienced across the NHS. It seems that radiotherapy assets –…

Service delivery innovation is the ‘holy grail’ solution sought by many in the UK across both the private and public sectors since we entered the austerity era. We have all been asked to do more with less. But is innovation…

When setting up any transformational programme or partnership, one preliminary aspect that can’t be overstated is the need for stakeholder communication and collaboration. Unfortunately, there seem to be many in the NHS procurement community who believe that the Department of…

The collapse of UnitingCare – the multi-million pound collaboration between an NHS consortium and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG to provide ‘older people’s and adult community services’ in the region – has had an unprecedented impact on the sector. It has…

A PFI project being hailed as a model partnership, expected to deliver what it was planned to, and all for less than expected may not be something you often see reported in the media, but the Thames Tideway Tunnel (TTT)…

Even before the age of austerity, the public sector has often had to find ways to do more with less. And now, this remit is more crucial than ever. In an era when public funding has been cut sharply, many…

‘PFI deals will cost taxpayers £209bn over next 35 years’, ‘One in five PFI assets will remain in private, rather than public ownership even after the contracts have ended’, ‘Every adult in Britain faces a debt of £4,119 to pay…

In our last article ‘4 Lessons from successful IT megaprojects’,we reviewed a number of the country’s largest and most renowned recent IT megaproject success stories in the context of what each could teach us from their struggles and accomplishments. This…

Megaprojects are large-scale public ventures, complex in nature, often taking many years to complete with the potential to impact on the lives of millions of people – they are projects on a scale that demands a very different management skillset,…

In their ongoing drive to reduce costs while attempting to improve services, the government has long believed shared services to be the answer. Annual savings in the region of 20% are commonly cited by those using shared services centres to…

You will know from experience, as we do, that size and term can impact on the complexity of a project and the relationships that govern such a venture. And, as PFI agreements by their very nature tend to be sizeable…

If you were offered an opportunity to save your council tens of millions of pounds you might be tempted. The question is, what time and resources would you invest into scrutinising the shared services deal? How much due diligence would…

October 2016 is set to be the start of a new shared-services agreement between the local authorities of Haringey, Islington and Camden, a partnership that has broadly promised to save them a total of £6m a year. And while the…

Despite sticking to the letter of their contract, we see £500m of Atos contracts under review by Whitehall. Time and again you will hear us discussing the benefits of a well-worded contract, of the need for it to be clear,…

In the face of growing perceived threats to security and defence the e-Borders project was conceived to “create a joined-up modernised intelligence-led border control and security framework” tracking passengers as they travelled to our shores by air, rail or sea,…

A mutual decision has been taken between The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CPCCG) and UnitingCare to end their five-year, £800m health services contract, after just eight months. It’s the latest in a long line of major outsourcing relationships…

With the New Year comes new challenges for Cornwall Council as it starts to regroup after its dispute with BT, over their 10-year £300m outsourcing contract, came to a dramatic end before Christmas. But what led these two parties, so…

Sometimes, despite your best efforts and those of your vendor, IT project failure cannot be averted. Inevitable though this may be in some cases, often a project can be saved or steered away from failing to meet your expectations by…

Inspiration for this piece came from an article I happened across recently. It was a passionate plea from openDemocracy UK, published just prior to Jeremy Corbyn’s elevation to party leader, which extols the virtues of nationalisation over privatisation. While clearly…

On the ‘What We Do’ section of their Home page, the CCS state: “The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) brings together policy, advice and direct buying; providing commercial services to the public sector and saving money for the taxpayer.” Saving money…

The utopian view of public sector services being run in-house by the public sector in a manner that all believe to be in the best interests of the population at large, seems to be a distant and hazy memory. This…

Factoring in supply chains, there are 5.4 million people employed in the public services sector in the UK, generating an estimated £113.5bn in revenue in 2012/13 (or 7.2% of UK GDP). It is, therefore, surprising that for a sector in…

If you’re even the slightest bit politically inclined, or you happened to have switched over to the leader’s debate on TV last week, the real ‘hot potato’ subject of note was the private sector outsourcing of NHS services. This is…

Anyone who knows me will appreciate that for good or for bad, I’m a strong advocate of the work of the National Audit Office (NAO). Yes, at times they can be a little overcritical, as those running complex strategic relationships…

This article will guide you through three key lessons that we can learn from Kelly’s all-too-brief public sector career: from managing vendors, to fostering innovation and embracing and learning from both failure… and success. Last month, chief operating officer and…

As outsourcing continues to gain popularity with both commercial-sector businesses and public-sector bodies, the importance of a strong and well resourced intelligent client function (ICF) team that has the skills and commercial awareness to drive maximum value from complex client/vendor…

With the 2015 general election rapidly approaching, understanding the politics behind public-sector outsourcing is essential for organisations that are considering tendering soon for these lucrative, though often very complex, relationships. Things seem to be getting quite politically polarised – Shadow Secretary of…

‘Chief Executives beware’ was the implied message from UNISON in respect of a recent employment tribunal decision that went against Barnet Council. UNISON’s recent press release suggested it was celebrating the conclusion of their “two year battle” against Barnet Council…

The need to control PFI costs is of paramount importance to any public sector organisation, yet often those responsible for PFI finance and the contract arrangements can work ‘in silo’ creating (inadvertently) a lack of cost control. Collaborative working, therefore,…

In 2007, when Southwest One was formed as a joint venture between private sector Goliath IBM, Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council, and Avon and Somerset Police, many pointed to it as a trailblazing move: an exemplar of how…

When state-funded public services were opened up to private sector competition in the 1990s with the introduction of Public Sector Mutuals, many wondered whether this would herald the death knell for the ‘traditional’ government-funded workforce that had held its monopoly…

Our focus is on operational PFI Contracts: How to get the most from partner changes. With most PFI contracts having an average lifespan of 20 to 30 years, it is inevitable that some of the parties will change during that…

As everyone knows, the public sector has never been a great ‘financial bonus giver’. After all, we’re just that little bit less likely to vote for any politician who openly supports the provision of financial bonuses paid via the public…

Despite the mounting pressure of ever more limited budgets and strict HM directives to actively pursue savings in PFI contracts, it is surprising how few organisations have completed a thorough review of their PFI-related costs. Recent discussions with senior managers…

So, here we are again. The rumpus of big public sector outsourcing (although not necessarily just in the public sector) has hit the headlines with both Christopher Hyman (CEO, Serco Group) and Richard Morris (CEO, G4S) both falling on their…