EU Procurement and Blue Passports

For once Public Procurement is big news.  The big news is that a French/Dutch company with facilities in the UK has won the contract to print the new Blue British passports over a British company with some assets in Malta.

My TLDR verdict: Delarue should have written a better bid.  (particularly if they are actually £120m more expensive has been indicated)

Procurex South - now onto Procurex North in Manchester 24th April 2018

Had a really good time at Procurex South.  Thanks to Twitter posters for the photos. Lots of questions from delegates, which I hope I managed to answer.  Good buzz around the place.  Got to get away from the stand to hear very interesting bit from Professor Sue Arrowsmith on Public Procurement implications of Brexit.  Her paper for the European Parliament last year is still the state of the art.  Current situation is wait and see but don't expect major changes in the near future.

And so onto Procurex North in Manchester on 24th April 2018 - full details here.  I am again running the Winning Tenders training zone.  Hopefully with new insights, or at least new jokes.

Hope to see you there.

CIPS Introduction to Public Procurement Bristol 25th April 2018

I shall be running the CIPS Introduction to Public Procurement course in Bristol in April 2018.  The next day is the Applying EU Public Procurement course, which follows on from the Introduction.  This time round we are not following that up with the Future of Public Procurement day, but that will be next run in Manchester in June 2018.  By which time the future of public procurement may have changed from where we are now - or may not.  That one needs regular checking and updating.

This course covers the basics of Public Procurement and so is useful for people joining the Public Sector, joining procurement, wanting a refresher, taking over running a procurement department or trying to sell to the public sector.  Or at least we often have delegates with those backgrounds.  If you are just interested, you are still welcome.

Procurex South 15th March 2018 - London Olympia

So, this is only a week away and I am looking forward to this.  My sessions are in the Winning Tenders Training Zone in the afternoon, so I hope to get to see some of the keynote speakers in the morning, in particular Professor Sue Arrowsmith who will be talking about Brexit and Public Procurement, and Malcolm Harrison who is currently CEO of the Crown Commercial Service, but in the summer will take over the role of CEO of CIPS.  And of course the brilliant Eddie Regan.

That's pretty top notch stuff.  Well, maybe not me.