Home Office procurement receives CIPS certification

CIPS

The organisation spends around £2 billion each year on goods and services and its Commercial Directorate is on track to achieve savings of £80 million in 2008. The achievement has been recognised by Sir David Normington, permanent secretary at the Home Office, who said: "I am absolutely delighted to have the evidence that the Home Office is up with the best. But I have learnt that in addition to procurement and commercial practices delivering best value, they can also help to solve wider departmental problems."

Robert McNeil, a member of the Home Office Commercial Directorate's Capability Team, said one of the certification programme's key benefits was the endorsement of the quality of procurement policies and procedures against an externally recognised benchmark. He added it would also help provide impetus to the Home Office Commercial and Procurement Transformation Strategy developed and led by John Collington, group commercial director.

Collington said: "We are absolutely thrilled to receive CIPS certification of our procurement policies and procedures and the external recognition this gives us. I'm delighted we achieved this in less than six months. This will add impetus to the procurement transformation journey the Home Office has embarked upon."

Embedding a new organisational and operating model for procurement is one of the current challenges, as is improving the management of information and suppliers. The CIPS certification programme will help by improving stakeholder engagement and collaboration across the group and ensuring the adoption of standardised policies and procedures. E-sourcing has also been embraced, making it the biggest user of the OGC-managed e-sourcing service.

Further information is available from Cristina Hubbard on 01780 756777 e-mail cristina.hubbard@cips.org.