Public sector saving millions with postal services agreement

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_ ... sp?id=8621

Tuesday, December 04, 2007
In their first year, postal services framework agreements by OGCbuying.solutions produced savings of £38m. This year £12.75m has been saved to date. OGCbuying.solutions' Peter Gollop explains

Issue 13 of the Public Sector Review: Central Government highlighted that the postal services framework agreements offered by OGCbuying.solutions, and available to all public sector bodies, allow for the opportunity to make significant savings from postal budgets.

The framework agreements went live on 1 April 2006 and are proving to be popular and successful. The first year of operation gave savings across all sectors of £38m. These savings continue into this year and additional savings to date, from April 2007, amount to approximately £12.75m.

It was recognised, both in the NAO report 'Improving the Efficiency of Postal Service Procurement in the Public Sector' and by OGCbuying.solutions’ postal services category management team, that savings can be achieved not only through using the framework agreements to encourage competition, but also by challenge existing working practices.

The OGCbuying.solutions postal & courier services category management team work closely with all of its framework agreement suppliers to identify savings opportunities. This includes switching mail products, from first to second class post, for example, or using Royal Mail workshare products to gain discounts. They have also put in place a customer toolkit, available on the OGCbuying.solutions website, to facilitate the move to making savings.

All of the postal services framework agreement suppliers are keen to work with the public sector to assist in making savings, and advice can be provided by the OGCbuying.solutions category management team.

A clear area for ensuring success is collaborative working between public sector bodies, which has led to significant savings and partnership working with the postal services industry.

Successes include:
• Value Wales – Health Trusts in South Wales working together with OGCbuying.solutions to realise significant savings for each trust
• North West Regional Centre of Excellence – working with a number of local authorities they used the frameworks, leading to a savings potential of £1m

The postal services category management team is working closely with customers across the public sector to encourage collaborative procurements and take advantage of the gains that this can bring. It is currently working with a number of collaborative procurement hubs, local authorities, procurement groups and central government departments to continue the success story.

Individual central government departments have already taken advantage of the framework agreements and more are currently working with OGCbuying.solutions.

OGCbuying.solutions will be building on these successes by working with the public sector through the postal services collaborative strategy team, which includes representatives from across all sectors. This body is the successor to the postal services forum that led the way to the formation of the postal services framework agreements.

The postal & courier services category management team is currently involved in the letting of framework agreements for logistics and courier services for the public sector. These framework agreements will cover the following lots:

1) Same day/next day
2) International
3) Hazardous goods
4) Valuable goods, cash, seized goods, secure transit, storage and destruction of bulk goods
5) Bespoke services

The project team, which is made up of category experts from government departments, has taken time to engage potential customers and suppliers to understand requirements and the market’s ability to meet them before going out to market.

The framework agreements are planned to be in place by early April 2008.

[jemima]

Yes. Savings were made. You can look on the OGCbuying.solutions website and learn how they evaluate postal sector services in terms of choosing the cheapest possible provider.

Also on PublicServantDaily

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=4562

"Benefit data loss could cost company £4bn
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
HMRC's lost data would have cost a private company £4bn, an insurance broker has claimed.

Using a US model, the cyber and IT risks division of insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson have said US legislation would mean that a company in this situation would have to provide bank account monitoring services. At approximately £50 a year, per customer, and over a three year period, 25 million customers would cost £3.75bn.

It would also cost around £250m to change all the customers' bank details, £7.5m just to notify customers by letter and a further £200,000 to carry out forensics to find out what went wrong.

Jeremy Smith, head of cyber and IT risks at Jardine Lloyd Thompson, said these costs do not even include legal fees if banks or customers decide to sue.

"If the details do get into the wrong hands and fraud is committed the costs can be enormous. The banks usually pay this but if they can prove that the company has been irresponsible they could sue," he said."