| Topic: | £500+ SPENDING. Council from the top down mired in waste | |
| Posted by: | George Knox | |
| Date/Time: | 14/02/11 20:34:00 |
| Whereas Hammersmith and Fulham report just 19 suppliers for their stationery supplies, (but Ealing has at least 75). http://www.spotlightonspend.org.uk/317/London+Borough+of+Hammersmith+and+Fulham/Spend That Council clearly has a far better approach to transparency and a far more professional way of presenting its expenditure than is the case for Ealing Council, although at least Ealing does show which department spent how much which Hammersmith should also do. It would appear on a recent Ealing report (9 February) to the Value for Money Specialist Scrutiny Panel that the Kate Graefe, Head of Strategic Procurement implies that the Ealing Departmental Directors do not confer with each other on suppliers. She says” At Ealing, procurement and contract management is devolved to individual service areas; Service directors are responsible for procurement and management of contracts within their own areas.” If that is true or mainly true, then these Directors should change their ways as soon as possible if they are to convince Ealing residents that they are doing everything in their power to reduce costs. Ms Graefe should long ago have analysed how many Stationery Consumables and Printing suppliers there are for Ealing and then negotiated far better procurement. What is the lady doing or is she confronted with “barriers”? And Councillors Dennehy and Malcolm should have been jumping up and down at that Scrutiny meeting. I wonder what the senior stance is in the big spending departments especially Housing and Social Services and Schools. There must be huge opportunities for rationalising some suppliers in these areas. The lack of radical recommendations in that report certainly underlines that the leader Julian Bell is utterly wrong to start off by saying the cuts should be spread evenly across the board. Is this fogged up lazy attitude a legacy of many years of sloppy Labour administration? |