What did Fallon do?

Less than two weeks ago Michael Fallon gave an undertaking that "[UK Government] will look at what responsibility can be put on retailers" in response to the Dhaka factory tragedy, where it is now thought 800 people will have lost their lives.

The tragedy pricked the conscience of some of the UK public and some of those buyers who appeared to have been pursuing a low price (/high human cost) sourcing strategy. Supplier audits and risk assessments  became a topic of conversation for a few days. Unfortunately, as more domestic stories occupied our news headlines the working conditions in Bangladesh become less topical and the cost of low price clothes, like cheap T-shirts, fades. It does not have the same memory joggers as the daily decisions we make regarding the authenticity of the meat we buy which remind us of the horse meat debacle. Indeed even the Bangladeshi Finance Minister appeared to trivialise the significance of the 800 deaths.    

But Michael Fallon did give an undertaking about responsibility and there is surely an obligation on him to make clear what he actually did do and what the outcome was. Two weeks is quite a long time in politics and the rhetoric changes. But in Bangladesh there are families who will never forget that buyer deadlines contributed to death, maiming and loss of income. To make matters worse we have now learnt of more deaths in another Dhaka factory as a result of a fire with at least eight deaths.

Doesn't this put in context yesterday's blog on low spec uniforms?

Now may be a good time for Michael Fallon and those in the retail industry to let us know what preventative actions they took?

Procurement look Big in the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012

In the firing line of criticisms regarding penalising the Third Sector through the Budget's tax regime and criticism that the Big Society aspiration has been swallowed up by the austerity strategy, I would have would have had a fanfare announcement of the The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. But I suspect many of those who need to operationalise the Act have missed something which should be fundamental to public procurement's contribution.  I don't think I even noticed a reference in Supply Management; CIPS's oracle! Is the absence of that fanfare indicative of a lack of ownership or scepticism that its potential will be realised?

Is the Act, which gained Royal accent on 8 March 2012 although yet to become law, is in danger of going the same way as so many strategic initiatives and disappearing off the procurement radar?  So, for example, when I ask the average UK public procurement person about the impact of the Welling-being Powers, The Compact, Eight Principles of Good Commissioning and the Small Business Friendly Concordat, I see that blank stare which says: 'I know nothing, and have done nothing, about embedding those in procurement policy, strategy, practice and performance management' (If you want a copy of my research paper on this, just let me know).  We have also considered some of the hollow strategic commitments relating to sustainable procurement.

Let's try to ensure that the Social Value Act does not end up the same way but is seized by procurement professionals as an opportunity to reposition procurement strategically and also 'make a difference'.

The Act is so simple and concise my blog risks having a bigger word-count than the Act itself. So, in a nutshell what does the Act say?

Reserved contracts: Disabling Article 19 and Regulation 7?

The government have announced the closure of 36 of Remploy's 54 factories.  Supposedly the rationale behind this being that it is wrong to subsidise Victorian era segregated employment of those with disabilities.  On the back of questions over the success of assisting those with disabilities back into employment and the perceived attacks on disability benefits claimants, this seems inconsistent with 'Compassionate Conservatism'.

Yet there is also a procurement dimension.

Within Regulation 7 of the Public Contracts Regulations (sometimes known as Article 19 of the Directive) there was the option of reserving contracts to those businesses considered to be 'sheltered workshops'. Eligible UK businesses are listed in the Supported Business Directory.

A quick scan of the Directory would suggest that if you delete 'Remploy' there will be questions over how competitive reserved contracts can be in the future. For many areas of the market there there will now be a monopoly. That will bring real problems for ensuring value for money.

The previous aspiration of every public sector body having at least one contract with a supported business also seems to have been forgotten about - that shouldn't surprise readers as I have already discussed this type of policy ignorance and contradiction in the past.

Equally, for many public sector bodies hoping to deliver social benefits, an easy way of achieving that aspiration is now going to be lost.

There are also risks which procurement practitioners now have to consider:

Obama's State of the Union message to procurement

It’s not often I take the time to look for procurement messages in a US Presidential address, but Obama’s State of the Union address has some interesting messages for the procurement world.

Obama views the economy has been weakened as a result of outsourcing!  Does he mean

CERN ideas for procurement

I listened with interest yesterday for the awaited announcement that the infamous Higgs boson had been detected.  Then I became increasingly frustrated as the scientists started to make statements such as 'we may be on the verge of a new discovery' - yes, they may have been on the verge of a new discovery but the scientific method is about testing and evidence, not wishful thinking, no matter how much you anticipate a successful outcome.  Now we've learnt that being on the verge of a new discovery means an announcement 'with confidence' really means within the next year.

Nevertheless I continue to be impressed with the scientific rigour being demonstrated in the search, wouldn't it be helpful if the scientists used the current media coverage to share something about how scientific rigour could help society in general and procurement in particular!

For example:

1. In September the scientists found evidence that questioned the accepted wisdom that nothing moves faster than the speed of light.  What did they do?  They set out their argument and published among their community in the hope that others may spot a flaw in their reasoning.  Now that's risk management.  
2. CERN is about testing theories.
3. The team at CERN appear to be at least two separate teams both trying to solve the same problems independently, yet sharing the iterations of their findings.  The two teams are competing separately to find 'the answer' not just for their team.
4. The team at CERN are there for the long haul - the project started in 1954 - it's a collaboration which predates the 1957 Treaty of Rome.  Some of the teams have been working for 20 years.
5. CERN is about bringing together 10,000 scientists, from many different countries and backgrounds, to solve problems.
6. The investment at CERN is big, billions.
7. CERN has been the home of three Nobel prize winners.

So what could be the lessons for the procurement world?

• Procurement has its own scientific community but what theories are emerging and being tested?
• One of my continual gripes has been that procurement academics have been so obsessed with empirical evidence they only report what they have found through research.  Well to me that says the real scientists are procurement professionals experimenting to see what works for them;. Unfortunately though, my experience is that those same 'inventors' are sometimes quite reticent about sharing ideas.  What I would like to see would be academics floating innovative ideas in practitioner and scientific publications so that flaws in those ideas and suggestions for improvement can be spotted and then refined.  If that happened we'd start to see and progress what Peter Smith recently advocated as 'Procurement Activism'.   Now that requires some change in the status quo - we'd need procurement academics to demonstrate problem based thinking and solution generation and working with practitioners (we could learn from Brazil); we'd need a forum for the thinking (perhaps blogs and a linkage with Supply Management); we'd need procurement practitioners to pose problems and also challenge the academic thinking (role reversal!); we'd need bravery;
• In procurement we frequently have different teams competing but not for the common good.  I would like to see more problem based teams working on how cost reduction could be delivered for example to mutual benefit.  It could be, for example, to work out the best approach to outcome specifications - there could be the suppliers team and the buyers team, then they could both come together to identify the optimum approach which would minimise the potential for legal challenge. For that to happen we'd need culture change. We'd also need to learn from the scientists that problem solving takes time.
• Supplier appraisals and tender evaluations are frequently team sports, by which I mean one team takes certain aspects of the submissions and then come together as a team to reach a consensus.  Yet, for the most difficult, high risk and potentially contentious procurements I don't think I have ever seen evidence of two entirely different teams for evaluators doing their evaluations independently and then comparing results - would that not increase objectively and reduce risk?
• If you want to make a big impact time is required, short-termism is counter-productive to solving the big problems.  We've had procurement consortia since 1957 and there's still some way to go before we have agreement on the optimum mix between local, regional and national procurement. But at least the people in CERN are on a journey of discovery - I sometimes ask myself why we seem so reluctant in the procurement world to say we just don't know but at least we're closer to an answer.  Can you think of the last time any procurement speaker uttered such heresy. 
• Where is the big investment in procurement? Over recent weeks I have heard from colleagues in universities which have had an interest in procurement that they are suffering from reduced budgets, reduced post-graduate student income, and reduced public sector investment in procurement research and learning.  Of course it is only recently we learnt that CIPS had reduced its investment in university chairs.  So are we seeing procurement investment for long-term saving and delivery improvement? 
• Where is the procurement equivalent of CERN's 10,000 scientists being brought together to solve problems, for example, recovery from the global economic crisis?
• We've Noble prize winners for physics, economics, literature, peace, ...  Now does anyone seriously think procurement's contribution will ever be recognised, and if it was, what would it look like and would be recognise it?

Am I wrong?  Is this happening? What do you think?