Costs are still rising – take action before its too late

Posted by: Lee Freeman

Having been away for a couple of days during half term I returned to my e-mails this morning and came across a couple of articles that intrigued me, and certainly in my mind, provided further justification to employing a professional cost and purchase management consultant in your business.

The first was the result of a survey by KPMG and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development which indicated that two out of three employers expected to have less staff in 2011 than 2011.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/14/jobs_forecast_grim/

Read more…

Public sector restrictions on consultants

One of our consultants had a meeting earlier this week with a charity client that receives funding from Central Government, via the Ministry of Defence. They tell us, however, that the MOD have recently been directed by the Government that they, and those under their direct influence, are no longer allowed to enter into any new consultancy agreements, an edict we assume now applies to all Government and public sector bodies.  This led to concern that, while the existing project would be allowed to run, they would not be able to expand the remit of the project to include  new areas of cost, something they were keen to do. However, when looking at the directive in more detail, it seems the ban applies to advisory services and not to “implementation“  for which the organisation does not have adequate in-house knowledge or resources.

For this reason, our client believes the Auditel service falls outside the ban as it goes far beyond the simple provision of advice and is clearly based on providing full implementation and ongoing management. What’s more, as a results-driven service, fees are not paid unless and until savings and benefits can be proven and, as an outsourced service, it is also specifically designed to fill the skills and knowledge gap many UK organisations experience in the area of cost and purchase management.