Government Procurement Cards – Wasteful or Wonderful?
The focus in the UK public sector is now firmly on cuts, saving money and trying desperately to stay within the chancellor’s ‘financial envelope”. There have been some signs of […]
Entries by Peter Smith
Zelensky, Trump and Negotiation
The shocking events last week in the White House, when the leader of the free world and his sidekick bullied the leader of an invaded country, supposedly an ally, will […]
The Things We Do for Love…
A procurement fraud in the British Army was driven by a quartermaster trying to impress his mistress.
Huge MOD Contract with Rolls Royce – Good Buying or Bad Buying?
The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) recently announced a significant contract with Rolls-Royce, aimed at ensuring the continued operational readiness and effectiveness of the country’s nuclear submarine fleet. The eight-year […]
Beware the Fake CFO!
I have mixed feelings about Ove Arup. One the one hand, they are an engineering company with a strong track record, great achievements, and one of my best friends worked […]
UK Public Procurement – Six Months In, How Is Labour Doing?
The election of Donald Trump in the US was one of the biggest global news stories of 2024, but our election back in July was significant for the UK, as […]
When in Rome – watch out for potholes!
When I lecture on Bad Buying, as I do at the Skema business school in Lille, I ask the students to think about what sort of procurement related fraud or […]
Musk to address US government spending – what fun awaits!
In the legendary Philip Green review of 2010, the new UK Prime Minister David Cameron asked the retail entrepreneur to take a look at government procurement. Some years later, the […]
HOW MUCH for a soap dispenser??
Stories about apparently grotesque over-payment by public bodies for mundane items is always good for a headline or two. We saw that back in the days of the Private Finance […]
Manipulating the specification for procurement fraud
One of the more creative ways of committing procurement-related fraud is by the manipulation of specifications. It requires a little more skill than simply bribing a decision maker to choose […]