NI Executive Daft Procurement Strategy leak

Amongst documents which have come to light as part of the conspiracy to undermine the Northern Ireland Executive was a Strictly Confidential Draft, trail blazing, Procurement Strategy. What will surprise the wider Procurement community is that the Strategy was developed in anticipation of the Brexit result and freedoms from the constraints of EU procurement legislation. The introduction makes the claim that the Strategy is innovative in aiming to both disturb and confuse the market so that the Procurement function can ensure best use of 'relative' power-sharing and be held up as an exemplar across the world - opposition cynics allege this justification was no more than a ruse to secure speaking opportunities at exotic locations!

 The key aspects of the strategy are:

• Disaggregation of spend so that wider benchmarking of prices is possible and, in parallel, provide an opportunity to improve the negotiation skills of local buyers;
• A shift from digital procurement solutions to paper-based in the hope that micro-businesses will be able to take on global competitors who have become reliant on bidding through eProcurement solutions;
• Use of collusive bidding clauses to ensure that market dialogue opportunities are maximised; 
• A shift to 'highest bid wins' in keeping with the wider NI Executive's Value for Money approach;
• To take some of the heat out of the heavily criticised RHI, green energy scheme, the feasibility of an Orange Supplier of the Year will be tested - this is not as bizarre as it sounds since, in recent times, the Health Minister issued a diktat that biscuits would be replaced with satsumas for departmental meetings.    

Given that the NI Executive has now crumbled we may never know whether the Strategy would have delivered the anticipated benefits - time will tell though whether others adopt a similar approach.

CIPS scores a masterful coup with Borgen procurement training video

I was really disappointed when I heard, last year, that Borgen, the Danish political drama, had finished. Borgen had been some of the best TV I'd seen - compelling viewing and impossible to predict what would happen next.

Borgen was a great example of a successful BBC make/buy appraisal. Auntie just doesn't seem able to produce such a consistently high quality series', so it was a clever to buy from Denmark rather than even attempt to compete by making.

We have all had enough long-running TV series' constructed around regional accents and although I generally have problems with sub-titles that wasn't a problem I had with Borgen. Would it be worth experimenting with subtitles on Eastenders, Coronation Street and Hollyoaks to see if they become more compelling viewing?

Borgen must also have been a tremendous success for the Danish tourist board. I suspect their marketing research now finds that when someone now asks: "What comes to mind when you think of the word 'Danish'?", responses have now moved beyond Danepak, Carlsberg, and pastry to include Borgen. That's a big success and is believed to contribute to the 0.23% increase in the Copenhagen tourist footfall.

So beyond make/buy lessons, what's all that got to do with procurement? As a stroke of genius, CIPS and CCS have entered into a partnership with DUPE (the Danish Unification for Public Procurement Eccord) in commissioning a public procurement training video for politicians based on Borgen. As I understand it, Borgen's central character, Birgitte Nyborg, finds herself faced with calls for her resignation as a result of a scandal involving the CPO and the Danish Chief Secretary to the Treasury. CIPS' press release states that "the video helps demonstrate the need for a clarity of roles between politicians and officers". CIPS also claim that this is a central part of their marketing strategy and is the first of a range of procurement resources using of subtitles due to ease of being able to provide translations. Consistent with that strategy, DUPE have priced for the first and second phases of translations. The first phase of translations are targeted for Belize, Botswana, Kenya, Fiji, Jordan, and Namibia; and the second phase translated for Mauritius, Malta, Nigeria, and the Philippines. It is understood that a recommendation for Cyrillic is being considered by CIPS Congress as part of a wider package of translation of all CIPS resources on public procurement and piloting of CIPS Licence.