Archive for the ‘Public Sector’ Category
Kru Desai is a partner at the firm and leads its public sector management consulting practice in the UK. She has worked at KPMG for 12 years in total, having started her career with the firm in 1993, rejoining as a partner in 2010
Desai has over 20 years experience of leading large, complex transformation programmes in the devolved public sector seeking to improve quality of public services, address productivity and secure economic growth.
Desai says: “This is a time of huge change in the local government landscape. The first wave of cost cutting is now largely in the past and councils are looking at more fundamental ways of bridging the future budget gap. So the time is right for professional service firms like KPMG to consider how local authorities can meet their wider economic, social and environmental priorities without hitting a budget wall.
“It’s not just about reducing costs within each service area – there are bigger opportunities in looking at funding, productivity and demand management, for example. These raise common questions for all local authorities, but we are seeing increasing variation between councils in their chosen solutions. This divergence shows where innovation is happening. That’s a good thing – but it needs careful handling. And that’s where KPMG can make a difference.”
Source: www.top-consultant.com
Atos has been awarded a five year contract worth £74 million by the Department of Health. Under the contract, Atos will deliver an integrated IT desktop service plus a range of supporting services within the Department of Health (DH) and for some of its Arms Length Bodies.
A spokesperson for the DH said: “The procurement was conducted against the ASCC framework using an in-house team and has delivered a flexible contract that will result in savings of around 40% on the current cost of service across the life of the contract.”
The contract draws together the desktop solution for the Department and some of its Arms Length Bodies, such as, the Care Quality Commission, into a common, high-quality, integrated, shared service. It supports the aims of the Government Strategy for ICT, both in reducing costs and ensuring the necessary ICT is in place to deliver DH reforms and modernisation in 2012 and beyond.
Wayne Gibson, Senior Vice President Government and Health at Atos said: “Our new solution makes the Government’s ICT Strategy, Sustainability and Open Source initiatives a reality. We will work with SMEs and use Open Source software to deliver a service that offers value for money.”
“ICT Shared Services is a core business for Atos and, as a company committed to service excellence, we will ensure that migration to the new solution is as seamless and easy as possible. We will deliver a scalable, robust and cost-effective service for people working in the Department and those Arms Length Bodies who will also use our service.”
The Atos solution is built using existing good practices together with modern desktop solutions to provide a people-centric service that enables flexible and collaborative working. To ensure a minimum impact on people and to help drive continuous service improvement, Atos will deliver a comprehensive internal communication programme and people training. It will also deliver a new data centre infrastructure, enabling maximised applications performance, reliability and availability on the desktop, with the flexibility to scale cost effectively.
Source: www.top-consultant.com
The MCA, the trade body for the management consulting industry, has welcomed the Cabinet Office’s announcement today of a new approach to buying consulting services which, the MCA says, has the potential to generate improved value for money for taxpayers. The announcement follows discussions between the MCA and the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG).
The new framework, called ConsultancyONE, responds to reports from the National Audit Office in 2006 and 2010 and is designed to give taxpayers assurance that consultancy services are bought when they are needed and in a way that maximizes the return on investment. Specifically, it should end the practice of buying temporary labour and classifying it as consulting. It will also provide buyers with access to a wider range of quality consulting firms, including many smaller and niche consultancies.
Commenting on the announcement Alan Leaman, Chief Executive of the MCA said: “The government has now put some clear water between value-adding management consultancy and temporary staffing or body shopping. These are different services and need to be separated in the buying process. Confusion between the two was often at the root of the reputational damage for the consulting industry.” He also welcomed new opportunities for smaller and specialist consultancies.
“Government buyers should have access to a wide range of quality firms who are capable of doing great work.”
Alan Leaman added: “Consultancies are ready to help this government achieve its difficult objectives of deficit reduction and improved public services. One of the key tasks for government departments is to get the best out of the extraordinary expertise and skill that is available in the UK’s consulting industry. Today’s new approach should help them to do so.”
Changes in the new framework that will come into effect in March 2012 will:
• End the buying of expensive temporary staff to cover staffing shortfalls, disguised as consulting
• Increase transparency and fairness
• Improve value for money for the taxpayer
• Focus users of consultancy on obtaining best value and results from consultancies
• Make it easier for smaller and specialist consultancies to bid for government work
• Introduce a new open-access web based bidding system for Government contracts under £100,000
The MCA added: “We will continue to work closely with the Cabinet Office to ensure that the public sector gets maximum value from its use of consultancy.”
Source: www.top-consultant.com
Paul Cleal has been appointed as PwC’s new Government and Public Sector Leader, following Jon Sibson who is leaving PwC to be Dean of the Business School at the University of Greenwich.
Paul has worked in PwC’s Corporate Finance practice since 1996 and became partner in 2001. He has extensive government and public sector experience. Before joining the firm, he worked in central and local government and since joining has worked with many public sector clients, including MoD, DFID, HM Prison Service, the Highways Agency, London Underground and various local authorities and NHS trusts.
Paul was a member of PwC’s Executive Board from 2006-2008 and subsequently served on the firm’s Advisory practice leadership team as People Partner, as well as working with clients on international development projects.
Richard Oldfield, head of Markets and Industries said: “I’m confident that Paul is the right person to lead our G&PS practice through the opportunities and challenges of the next few years. In the short term, some areas of the public sector market will remain tough but it is a critical element of our business and one we are committed to.”
Paul Cleal, partner and Government & Public Sector Leader said: “I’m delighted to take on the leadership of the firm’s Government & Public Sector practice. I am looking forward to the chance to grow the business significantly in the coming years and to broadening our client base. The public sector is facing challenging times but remains a highly dynamic market where there is potential for significant growth and a real demand for reform and significant changes in public service delivery.”
Source: www.top-consultant.com
Mick James, Top-Consultant.com’s management consultancy columnist, gets creative about how the government can help UK companies and the economy.
Government spending can return the economy to growth
The sky is falling! Well, not the sky, rather the PMI, the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply’s Purchasing Managers Index, which measures—well, we’ll come to that, has fallen to 51.1. From 55.4 in July. This, apparently, is a greater decline in the index than we’ve seen since foot-and-mouth struck in April 2001. Cue lots of “double dip” headlines and blaming of chancellors, whether the current one or the one before last depending on the colour of your political jersey.
But what does it all mean? The PMI is held in regard as an economic weathervane, because it looks into whether purchasing managers are seeing an improvement in conditions and therefore acts as a guide to what will happen to the future. This is markedly more useful than the GDP figures, which give an account of how badly we were doing in the past.
So the PMI measures, or at least indicates, growth, with a baseline of 50 implying no change, managers either reporting a static return or gains and loss that balance out.
So even 51.1 implies some growth—and more than the equivalent index for Europe, which is at 50.1.
It’s the fall that’s making headlines, which reinforces my contention that British journalists should never be let near rates or derivatives. The PMI index in manufacturing is already (just) below 50, which is regularly reported as “manufacturing grinds to a halt.” This sort of reporting first became familiar to me in the 1980s, when it was regularly reported as a positive that the rate of growth of unemployment had slowed.
Anyone can play this game, and I can confidently report after a visit to the scales this morning that I am not putting on weight nearly as fast as I was last week. Hurrah!
I’m not dismissing the PMI. It’s clearly a cause of grave concern that purchasing managers are feeling bleak about the future, particularly in our precious services sector. It’s as if they’ve been reading the newspapers.
We do have a predilection for negative economic reporting in this country. God knows you have to be a brave man or woman to admit to seeing “green shoots” in the economy, as Norman Lamont did in 1991 and Baroness Vadera did in 2009. Both were pilloried at the time, and although Lamont was eventually vindicated, Vadera’s reputation as a seer is still on the line.
It’s instructive to compare this recession with that one. The PMI only got going in the UK in 1992, at which point the manufacturing PMI took off like a rocket, a growth spurt not seen until, er, February of this year. The difference is that the momentum of the post 1992 recovery proved unstoppable. Although the economy continued to grow, it was too late for the Major administration and by the time new Labour took over in 1997 it really didn’t seem totally ridiculous to talk about the “end of boom and bust.”
Now the situation is different. We seem to be frozen, boxed in like some fiendish Chinese puzzle, where every possible move seems to be blocked by another piece. We lie in a world of paradox: it’s clearly a good idea for employment if we spend money, but fear of unemployment means we hoard it. Such money as I have makes only fleeting appearance in my wallet, like a rare migratory bird. I pay the cleaner and my clarinet teacher in cash and that’s about it. Everything else is in some bank or other. Yet the banks have no money. We blame “their” Chancellor, whoever he may be, and absolve “our” Chancellor, the victim of unstoppable global trends.
At the same time there’s enormous pressure for our leaders to do something, otherwise we might suspect that all our politicians are merely the snail sitting on the tortoise. The world’s leaders should come together and tackle the crisis, we are told. I’d be all for that, if the world’s leaders had a track record adept at coming together and tackling minor issues before they unleashed their superpowers on anything major. Look at how well the global fire brigade did with the chip-pan fire that was Greece, for example.
There used to be a solution to all this (still considered “basic economic literacy” by some), in the form of Keynesianism. Having been taught the doctrine by fairly devout followers of the great man, I was very taken by the idea of spending your way out of a recession, rather in the way that a sharp slap on the top of a telly would jolt the valves back into place and get the set working again. “Magic hand” versus “invisible hand,” if you like.
But the great stimulus programmes of the last few years seem to have been remarkably less effective than the laissez-faire approach of the early 1990s, which leads me to suspect that the economy doesn’t work on valves any more. Giving consumers money is futile—look at lottery winners. Even when you give the average Brit a million pounds all they want to do is buy a bigger house (at least if they were German they would build one).
We’re now in the bizarre situation where not only is the government overspending its income at rates Keynes could only dream of, but we’re still not growing.
My solution is more cuts and more spending. Government has failed as a provider, perhaps it should try and do a bit more as an enabler. Look at tertiary education. Despite all the rumpus, the government is still going to pump millions into university education, just in the form of loans. This is in stark contrast to my day when I was simply given loads of money for my education and expected to make something of myself. Suckers!
Perhaps something similar could be tried to revitalise our moribund services sector. Companies are dying to make the improvements that will make them profitable again, but until they make some profits they can’t fund them. Consultants are doing as much as they can to move to contingency fees, but it’s not an industry that is exactly awash with working capital.
So am I suggesting that, in the midst of all this austerity, the government starts handing out massive grants for consultancy? No—grants are too easy to manipulate for a start, but a structured programme of business development loans that were hypothecated to transformation projects (rather than allowed to be siphoned off into merely buying more time for a failing firm) might work.
I can’t imagine it being a politically popular move, but it would certainly prop up the PMI and stop us all from jumping off a cliff. And UK plc would be a better-run place.
Whether the cash so distributed would have an actual multiplier effect in the Keynesian sense is debatable—I‘ve never known consultants to spend money on anything. But that’s a different story.
Source: www.top-consultant.com
New report finds that the use of consulting services continue to slide across Local Government.
Findings from a new Sourceforconsulting.com report released today (18 August 2011), which surveyed Local Authorities in England & Wales , has found that whilst management consulting spend across Local Government has continued to slide by between 10-40 per cent in the last six months, those Authorities that continue to use management consultants are turning more often than not to specialist (SME) firms.
The report found that Local Government are showing a very strong preference for specialist firms – which account for more than half (53 per cent) of all expenditure. This compares with just an 11 per cent share these firms control in the private sector. In stark contrast, Big Four Firms, who dominate the private sector market with a 36 per cent share, only have a 13 per cent share of Local Government consulting.
Ed Haigh, Head of Content and Marketing at Sourceforconsulting.com said:“In a brutal market, where there is scant work to go around, specialist and strategy firms appear to be coming off best – with local government expenditure allocated to these firms roughly three times the average across the public and private sectors combined. This is perhaps because there is a perception that such companies are best positioned to help take Local Authorities on difficult journeys. One that involves delivering step changes in efficiency, productivity and service levels with almost no budget.”
Services in demand
The report found that the consulting services in strongest demand at the moment are improving operational performance and IT consulting. However, spending on these services has still been relatively weak given the sizeable tasks that face local government organisations.
Ed Haigh, continued:“Funds may be in short supply, and public scrutiny may be merciless, but there is work that needs to be done before local authorities will experience the efficiency and productivity benefits they are aiming for. Halting projects puts at risk the payback from investments already made; finding new, self-funding ways to achieve the same goals may be a more prudent strategy.”
The future of consulting in Local Government
The report found that while decreased spending is expected in all areas, there are services on which some Local Authorities expect to increase expenditure. For both formulating strategy, and outsourcing, 20 per cent of those surveyed indicated that their spending on consulting services would increase over the coming six months. The report says that the requirement for strategy consulting could indicate that councils are still at the drawing board stage when it comes to implementing the level of change required to transform performance, and this focus on strategy is consistent with what has happened in other areas of the market following a period of sharp contraction.
What the Big Four need to do…
The report says that where the Big Four firms are concerned, the three main recommendations offered by two-thirds of local authority respondents, were to:• Ensure that they develop genuinely new ideas;• Deliver high-quality work on time and to budget;• Understand and address councils’ procurement needs.
Secondary requirements, cited by a third of respondents, were to:• Field senior consulting talent with deep public sector experience;• Bring prices down.
Source: www.top-consultant.com
| Alan Leaman, CEO of the Management Consultancies Association, takes a look at what lessons can be learnt from the use of management consulting in the public sector.
Implementing change in the public sector: What went wrong? So it’s arrived. Following the dramatic private sector recession of 2008-09, we are now deep into a period of public sector austerity. What can we learn about each sector from how they have used management consultancy during this period – a time, after all, of massive change and re-thinking? Well, the first thing is that both sectors cut their expenditure on consultancy – the private sector in 2009 and the public sector last year. Our industry should be grateful, at least, that the two did not coincide precisely. As spending in the public sector on consulting dropped by 15% in 2010, it was at least balanced by increased spending by the private sector of around 10%, much of it in financial services. But, underneath this picture, there are some distinct differences in the approach of the two sectors. In 2009, private sector businesses responded to the downturn by using consultancies to help cut their costs, re-structure their businesses and prepare themselves for a better future. Some consultancy service lines saw actual increases in expenditure. The public sector, by contrast, proved to be nowhere near as sophisticated. Despite the considerable work that Francis Maude and others had undertaken prior to the 2010 general election on implementation issues, there has been little sense that the machinery of government understands how consultancy services can be used to deliver the Government’s major objectives – reduction of the public sector deficit and improved productivity, coupled with the reform and decentralisation of public services. None of the consultancy services that could directly assist the government in achieving these objectives has been spared from the general attack on expenditure. The MCA’s most recent research report, Responding to austerity: How Britain’s public and private sectors used consulting in 2010, sets out these findings in more detail. It is available free of charge to all staff who work for MCA member companies. Looking at the data, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that ministers and officials have fixed on the wrong target for government. Their desire to be able to say that they have delivered short-term reductions in consultancy spending has taken priority over the more important job of delivering the large scale changes that are needed to transform and modernise our public services, while also delivering greater efficiencies and higher productivity. Some significant opportunities have been missed; serious ones for a government that has set such ambitious policy and organisational goals for the remainder of the Parliament. This analysis underlines the significance of the MCA’s current talks with the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group about the future use and procurement of consulting by central government. We have a rare opportunity to shape a better future. As numerous NAO reports have argued, consultancy brings important added value to the public sector, but it has also been plagued by reputational, procurement and political difficulties. Too often, buyers (and their consultancies) are concentrating on the process rather than achieving desired outcomes. A new, more transparent and value-focussed system of procurement could yet deliver improved value for taxpayers and a sustainable market for the consulting industry. __________________________ |
|
Source: www.top-consultant.com
The Management Consultancies Association (MCA) has today welcomed the Government’s announcement to shake up the delivery of public services, allowing more involvement from companies, charities and community groups.
Commenting on the Government’s plans Alan Leaman, CEO of the MCA, said: “Bold reforms should be at the heart of the Government’s strategy to improve public services, raise productivity and reduce the public deficit. Management consultancies welcome any move that enables public sector managers to seize the benefits of greater efficiency and best practice. Greater competition and additional choice are bound to improve the incentives and opportunities to do so.”
Source: www.top-consultant.com
Hitachi Consulting UK has been named as the only UK finalist in the Dynamics Public Sector Partner of the Year category at the Microsoft World Partner Conference Awards 2011. The nomination recognises Hitachi Consulting’s innovative work with Compass Point Business Services Ltd, which has already helped to deliver a £2.1 million in savings within the first year. The award also recognises Hitachi Consulting’s ongoing commitment to its relationship with Microsoft, its continued focus to deliver technology solutions, and Dynamics know-how.
Awards were presented in multiple categories, with winners chosen from a set of more than 3,000 entrants worldwide. The Microsoft Dynamics Public Sector Partner of the Year Award honours partners who have exhibited excellence in providing innovative and unique solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics to organisations in the public sector. This award recognises Hitachi Consulting (UK) for demonstrating industry knowledge and expertise, as well as consistent, high-quality, predictable service to Microsoft Dynamics customers. This partner also has shown business leadership and success through strong growth in new customer additions and revenue.
Hitachi Consulting UK is supporting Compass Point by providing the back office shared services infrastructure, the new joint shared services organisation wholly owned by South Holland District Council and East Lindsey District Council in Lincolnshire.
“Compass Point is the first Public Sector implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in the UK, and according to Compass Point’s own business plan, our solution is expected to deliver an estimated £30 million in savings to the two district authorities over the next 10 years,” said Steve French, Vice President, Enterprise Applications at Hitachi Consulting UK. “We’re delighted to receive this recognition for our work in the Public Sector. After many years of investment, Hitachi Consulting UK has developed proven and industry specific ‘best practice’ process methodologies to help achieve rapid implementation times, an integrated and optimised solution to help Public Sector organisations complete transformation programmes.”
“Seizing the opportunity to share and support ICT services is not just the logical response to funding cuts in an austere economy, but it is also the face of Public Sector service delivery and efficiency moving forward,” said Councillor Paul Przyszlak, Chairman of the Board of Compass Point Business Services. “It was therefore extremely important that we work with a company that has both technical insight, and a specific understanding of public sector requirements. We selected Hitachi Consulting UK because we felt they had the best vision for delivering modern and agile ICT systems with both the scalability and flexibility to accommodate the needs of different councils.”
“We are proud to recognise this outstanding group from our highly valued worldwide partner network as our 2011 Partner Award finalists,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp. “We applaud the unique perspective and creativity each of these companies brings to solving customer business and technology challenges. Our strong alliance partnership along with their commitment to customers plays an essential role in our mutual, long-term success.”
Hitachi Consulting UK is the trusted provider of choice to some of the UK’s largest Microsoft users and some of the most complex IT environments. UK Microsoft customers include UK Accreditation Service (UKAS), Co-op, easyJet, Experian Footfall and Luton Borough Council, to name a few.
The Microsoft Partner Awards recognise Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the past year.
Source: www.top-consultant.com
Agencia Consulting, a management consultancy that specialises in healthcare, local authorities and the judicial services, has appointed Steve Pitts to lead Agencia’s UK justice work.
Agencia Consulting appoints new UK Justice leader
Pitts background is in policing, and latterly in Community Engagement and Programme Management with Criminal Justice Boards in Leicestershire, Rutland and West Midlands.
In his new role at Agencia Consulting, Pitts will take the lead on sales and marketing to UK justice organisations.
Commenting on his appointment, Pitts said: “Agencia Consulting is a leader in criminal justice reform, working with clients from across the sector and individually at local, regional, national and international level. Agencia Consulting is also heavily involved in the justice reform and human rights agenda in Eastern Europe (Croatia, Ukraine, Serbia). I am eager to help expand the justice sector business, identifying new opportunities for Agencia Consulting to work with agencies in the sector as we seek to address huge changes in organisation, structure and workload, at a time of significant cost savings.
Commenting on the appointment, Andrew Gibson, managing director at Agencia Consulting, said: “We are delighted that Steve will be leading our UK justice work. His experience and knowledge of the sector will ensure he is well-placed to advise our clients.”
Source: www.top-consultant.com