Assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of porters and cleaners
Benchmarking is increasingly used in the quest for efficiency and most universities have used the Procurement Maturity Assessment, developed by SUMS Consulting and the Southern Universities Purchasing Consortia. SUMS has now developed another maturity model that allows easy self assessment and indicates a way forward and has applied it to portering and cleaning services.
G-Cloud: universities can use new online marketplace
G-Cloud is a UK Government initiative to encourage the adoption of Cloud Services across the whole of the Public Sector as well as the higher education sector. It aims to simplify how the Public Sector buys and delivers services by creating a marketplace of pay-as-you-go commodity services that can be easily scaled up or down, based on the changing needs of an organisation and its users.
‘Insourcing’ is the new ‘outsourcing’
Creating a wholly-owned subsidiary company to house the commercial activities of a university is fundamentally about cultural change rather than cost saving. If the focus is placed firmly on stripping out payroll costs through reducing rates of pay and associated staff benefits, then the project is doomed to failure, says Peter Church Director of Campus Services at the University of Essex.
HEPA – building procurement capability in higher education
Why procurement professionalism is essential for institutional sustainability. About the Higher Education Procurement Academy and Procurement Maturity Assessments.
Universities – the ‘intelligent customers’ of the future
Higher education institutions should develop their own approach to becoming ‘intelligent customers’ of suppliers, which will involve investment in new skills, changes in culture...
HEPA procurement training now available
The Higher Education Procurement Academy (HEPA)’s programme of face-to-face training is now available to book on the HEPA website.
Consorting with the consortia – the 30% target
You might think there is nothing new about collaborative procurement in higher education. After all, there are six main procurement consortia based in England that have been working with institutions for some years. They help with collaborative procurement among institutions and between HE and other sectors.
What is new is that there’s a target to hit, as set by the Diamond Report on Efficiency and Modernisation. By 2016, it is expected that 30% of non-pay spend should be through effective collaborative arrangements.
That’s a tough target, and it raises a number of questions.
HE’s financial health… and a missed opportunity
Procurement - why no mention of it in HEFCE's latest report on the financial health of the higher education sector? asks Andy Davies, Director of London...
GeM – the online store for HE and FE
eMarketplace and contracts repository for Higher and Further Education sectors offering sector negotiated and approved contracts.
Future challenges for procurement in higher education
In a competitive world, the UK’s universities are rising to the challenge of maintaining their position as world leaders. And so should their procurement teams says procurement expert Peter Smith.