The Procurement Act Expo, Tuesday 12th March 2024, Birmingham NEC

 I am going to this event as a delegate rather than as a presenter - that is how valuable and useful I think it is going to be.

Jointly presented by the Cabinet Office and BIP Solutions.

Hope to see you there.

Full details are here.

CIPS Public Procurement courses - Birmingham 20/21/22 February 2018

Next week I am running 3 days in Birmingham for the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, covering UK Public Procurement.  The first day is the Introduction and is fully booked (next one is 25th April in Bristol).  Second one is Applying the Procurement regulations, and the third is the Future of Public Procurement .

3 good days, which can be taken as a block or one at a time - they are as standalone as I can make them.

p4H Birmingham 12th July 2017

I'm delighted to say that I am speaking at P4H this week.  Once again looking after the Supplier's Training zone.

Hope to see you there.

CIPS Applying Public Sector Procurement Processes, Birmingham, 22 February 2017

My second CIPS open course of the year, will be the follow up to Introduction to Public Sector Procurement where we look in more detail at the procurement processes, and in particular the less common ones such as Competitive Dialogue, Innovation Partnership, and Dynamic Procurement Systems.

It is ideal to do as the second day of an introduction to Public Procurement, or to look at the less common processes.

Details are here.

CIPS Introduction to Public Sector Procurement, Birmingham, 21st February 2017

So the first of my CIPS open courses approaches at surprising speed, as 2017 rolls on.

So this is the course we have run in 2016, with the minor change of referring to the Selection Questionnaire (SQ) and European Single Procurement Document (ESPD Scotland) rather than PQQ.

Details are to be found here.

P4H - 13th July 2016 Birmingham NEC

I shall be presenting the Supplier Training Zone at P4H, the leading Procurement event supporting Operational productivity in the NHS run by BIP Solutions.  Which is a bit of a mouthful, but does describe what it is about.

It is free to the Public Sector, and £95 for private sector - but hopefully the training sessions alone compensate for that (not necessarily mine, of course - there are 3 other training zones as well).  The sessions I am running are not only applicable to the NHS, so there would be value in popping along if you supply other Public sector bodies too.

Hope to see you there.

Impact of the new UK Public Contracts Regulations 2015

My friends at BIP Solutions PASS training are running a bunch of courses to help people understand the new UK Public procurement regulations and what it means in practice.  Remember the new regulations are already in place for Central government, and start today for other government bodies (unless you are in Scotland of course, when the regulations will come later in the year).

There is massive interest in these events (some of which are sold out, which is something to lift a trainer's spirits).  Full details are at the link here, but new dates and locations are being added quite regularly at the moment.

The locations are really spread around the country, so there should be one fairly near you - rather than the more standard axis of London, Birmingham, Manchester.

I am delighted to be one of the consultants delivering these events, along with my colleagues Eddie and Digby.

If you wish to attend (or miss) one of my events I should be presenting at:
Cambridge 8th April 2015
York           15th April
Newcastle   16th April
Sheffield     22nd April
Birmingham 30th April
(I'm mostly doing other things in May)
Lincoln        3rd June
Cambridge   4th June
Birmingham 10th June
Nottingham 17th June
Newcastle    23rd June

Oh, and I shall be at a new event in Birmingham on 4th July which I shall cover later.
All dates subject to change, and of course we may move around presenters depending on circumstances.

So, hope to see you there - do bring questions and examples

Preparing Perfect Tenders - Birmingham 25th March 2015

I am taking over the Preparing Perfect Tenders course in Birmingham from my colleague Eddie, and so I have the opportunity to repeat the event I ran last month in Manchester.  Hopefully with new jokes.

 

Of course, since then the new EU procurement regulations have come into force in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  How does this change things?  Why not come along to the Novotel and find out?  (Ideally having booked first of course)

 

 

Courses

For BIP Solutions I shall be running Introduction to Procurement in Birmingham on 22nd October, and then Competitive Dialogue on the 23rd.   Need to confirm the venue, but it will probably be etc Venues, which is very nice and near the statue of the Boy Himself (Tony Hancock).
I don't expect that anyone will go to both (one being an Introduction, and the other being a rather specialised course) but I will be very pleased to see you there at whichever is appropriate.

Procurex

There have been some changes at Procurex - the conference and exhibition focussing on public sector procurement, run by BIP Solutions.  Previously there were two events - Procurex (for Scotland in Glasgow), and Procurex National for England and Wales.

The events are now being structured on a regional basis, with separate events for Scotland, Ireland, North of England, Midlands and South of England.  Does not yet seem to be one for Wales.

I have attended these as both a delegate and a member of BIP Solutions team, and they are a very interesting and stimulating day.  There are exibitors, some top notch speakers, and short seminars on a variety of topics.

I may be involved with Procurex North at Old Trafford in Manchester on 25th April 2013, where I would be particularly keen to listen to Sally Collier, Deputy Chief Procurement Officer at the Cabinet Office talking about the new EU Procurement Directives.  If I am there, I hope I am not scheduled against her.  She is giving the same presentation at the Midlands event on 12th March, and the South event on 18th April,  where they will also have Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude.  So that is your opportunity to ask questions about the different approaches employed by him and Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for communities and Local Government.

Further details are here.  Don't be put off by the threat that I might be there - I shall probably be presenting Professional Procurement Skills in Dubai instead - details of that here.

HS2

This is not a blog with particularly much thought behind it (are any of them you may well ask), but I am in favour of High Speed 2.
It will make little to no difference to my working life, as even if it arrives on time I should be on track for retirement (pardon the pun).

That this is a the first major investment in new train lines north of London for nearly a century shows how little we as a country have responded to the changes in behaviour and interconnectedness over that time.  I rarely work within walking distance of my house (apart from when I am working from my office),  and the motorways are increasingly full at all times of day and in all weathers.  So we use the trains. 

2 and a bit hours to London is not bad but 1 and a bit hours is better.  I find it difficult to grasp that people value their own time so little that they dont want to save 2 hours on the round trip.  Obviously they are made of hardier stuff than me, and are never resort to thinking "Oh its too much trouble", as I do.

Are there better things to spend the money on?  Possibly.  That is a choice and decision that a lot of people have opinions about - mostly of the "spend it on this thing I know about" variety.  In fact HS2 may be one of those things.  Meanwhile Thameslink and CrossRail will cost about the same and are hardly on people's radar.

Should we protect the countryside?  Oh please.  We are not as a nation rich enough that we can afford to have a perfectly landscaped environment everywhere.  No nation is.  So again there are choices, and sometimes perfectly nice places will need to have train lines, wind turbines or electricity pilons (or all 3) in order that the country as a whole benefits.  And a damaged view is not the same as a broken leg - take pictures and photoshop them if you must.

Then there are the usual "it will never work" voices, that I hoped would have been at least slowed down by the Olympics.

Personally I think the Birmingham -Manchester line should go on at full speed to Glasgow.  That would do wonders for both Scotland and places on the way such as Carlisle and Preston.
Will it really benefit the North?  There are arguments both ways, but I think it is better to have improved infrastructure than not.

In the meantime it will create employment and economic impact, and at the end of it we will be able to travel that much more easily and quickly. 

In short, I'm in favour.