News

David Shields leaves Government Procurement Service

22 May 2013 | Government, Procurement, Public Sector | Comments (0)

Managing director of Government Procurement Service (GPS), David Shields, is to leave the position at the end of June.

The GPS was created to provide procurement savings for the government and UK public sector, including health, education and local government. Shields, who has fronted the organisation since 2010, said he is proud of what has been achieved in a “relatively short time."

In 2011-12, GPS managed public procurement spend totaling £8.4 billion, and by the end of 2012/13 increased this to more than £11 billion, against an original target of £10 billion.

Succeeding him is government deputy CPO Sally Collier who will become acting managing director and accounting officer with immediate effect. She will be backed by Stephen Guy, and the rest of the executive management team will remain unchanged.

Read the full article at Supply Management

Sir David Nicholson steps down as NHS England Chief Executive

22 May 2013 | Government, NHS, Politics | Comments (0)

It was announced yesterday (May 2013) that Sir David Nicholson will retire from the NHS and from his post as NHS England Chief Executive March 2014.

Caught up in the Staffordshire hospital scandal, Nicholson came under intense political pressure after publication of the Francis report which focused on the lack of care at the hospital over four years. During this time Nicholson was briefly in charge of the regional health authority responsible for the trust while patients were being mistreated.

Branded by the Daily Mail as "the man with no shame" for staying in post, his leadership was fraught with controversy. Nicholson was appointed NHS chief executive in 2007. In the coalition's new NHS, he controlled more than £95bn of health spending.

In his resignation letter to Professor Malcolm Grant, Nicholson expressed: "I have only ever had one ambition and that is to improve the quality of care for patients. I still passionately believe in what NHS England intends to do. My hope is that by being clear about my intentions now this will give you and the board the opportunity to attract candidates of the very highest calibre so they can appoint someone who will be able to see this essential work through to its completion."

To read the full article visit The Guardian

SpendMatters: Francis Maude speaks – is the Minister for Procurement an enemy of procurement ?

21 May 2013 | Procurement, Public Sector, Spend Matters | Comments (0)

Taken from Peter Smith's: Francis Maude speaks – is the Minister for Procurement an enemy of procurement? - May 20, 2013

"The UK parliament Public Administration select Committee last week quizzed Francis Maude, Minister with responsibility for public sector procurement...and Maude made a statement that stopped me in my tracks... I listened several times to get his words exactly right:

'Commissioning is about much more than procurement, it is about knowing the market of potential suppliers. Procurement is the relatively narrow and should be very short technical part in the middle and contract management – where we have too few people … who have confidence and knowledge to engage with the market of suppliers and then have the capability to manage contracts after they have been awarded'

So after 3 years, our Minister thinks procurement is 'narrow', focused apparently on getting a contract let as fast as possible, and it is a 'technical' activity. How intensely depressing. I’ve generally given Maude the benefit of the doubt here because he has got into the detail of procurement in a way no other Minister ever has. But, for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly, the conclusion he seems to have come to is that procurement and 'the profession' is pretty insignificant – he certainly doesn't see it in the way we do."

To read the full article by Peter Smith visit Spend Matters