The lack of a public procurement panel representative will be an excuse for some in the sector to say that it is irrelevant. Perhaps there is an unstated implication that the public sector would not adopt such strategies even if it could. There are many examples of good public practice and the Central Government procurement guidelines and Radical package unveiled contain some that are promoted by 2020.

It would be good to engage with the organisations of those panel members that have a large portfolio of public sector contracts. Sodexo might be a good early partner in any exercise to drive up the value of public services by fostering improved procurement.

There are parts of the report that could have been written ten years ago. It illustrates how much inertia there is within even the most enlightened organisations.  The report predicts the spend management function will be small by 2020.  Perhaps the Cabinet Office might review its strategy if it is widely accepted that Enterprise Level purchasing will be a thing of the past!

An undeniable sentiment from the report, one that rings true to me, is that the best results will only come from allowing talented buyers to operate in the best way at the optimum level. The optimum is seldom at the enterprise wide level.