Peston: 'I'd be bust if I ran my business the way government does'

Sir_Humphrey

Generali wrote: »

I disagree. It would be possible to insist that all Government departments chose certain commoditised items (eg computers & consumables) from a list unless they had reasons to chose otherwise.

But who makes those decisions and negotiates the contract? How would you avoid the situation that all departments end up with the more expensive contract?

Surely a very small contract negotiating body would the logical way of doing it?

With individual bodies under localism, what Green is proposing is similar to the idea of Arcadia and Marks and Spencer getting together to reduce thier costs. This would be mutually beneficial, but would never happen even if were legal.

What Green is proposing is the complete opposite of current coalition ideology.

BTW, on time payment was pushed very heavily across the Civil Service under the previous govt during the recession.

ILW

What about spot checks on purchases made, and if it is found that too much was paid without a good reason, the individual responsible gets sacked for incompetance. Bet that would bring down the costs pretty quick.

Old_Slaphead

JasonLVC wrote: »

What's wrong with the industry norm of 28 days payment terms? (arguably, that 'norm' is more like 60 or 90 days if dealing with big multi-national suppliers).

A business that cannot survive 28 days without an invoice being paid is probably a business that has other troubles.

To be pedantic, 'normal' terms are 30 days End of Month ie payment end of month following month of invoice/delivery (although, as you say, big firms often exploit this).
Because that's relatively standard, much of a company's debtors ledger can be financed by the creditors ledger. Paying VAT quarterly also assists funding.

carolt

bendix wrote: »

As always, you couldn't get it more wrong if you tried.

A guy who finds perfectly legal ways to save money is PRECISELY the sort of person who should be telling the government how to save money.

He is the ultimate moneysavingexpert. Who better to advise on such things?

Every single one of us uses tax avoidance schemes to enhance our financial position - personal allowances, pension relief etc. You likely do too.

Stop being a hypocrite.

Do you not see there might be a conflict of interest between what is good for the country and what is good for Sir Philip Green?

Clearly, the country wants larger tax receipts, but Phiplip Green is not exactly going to be the man to recommend closing loopholes to achieve that.

I have no particular objection to Philip Green as such, and some of his suggestions may well be perfectly reasonable (if, as Andy L and Sir Humphrey put it so well, at odds with current Tory thinking). However, I do not think that, given his tax avoidance history, he is a suitable figure to be telling the rest of us to tighten our belts.

tomterm8

ILW wrote: »

Most of the loopholes were set up or maintained by that prudent socialist Gordon Brown.

I'm supposed to be surprised at that? New labour was a corporatist government from start to finish. It made it virually impossible for small businesses to compete in large sections of the economy via regulation.

I never voted for them, and in the main did not agree with their policies. Don't confuse the fact that I disagree with the conservatives on one policy (deficit reduction) with party affiliation with the labour party.

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

With individual bodies under localism, what Green is proposing is similar to the idea of Arcadia and Marks and Spencer getting together to reduce thier costs. This would be mutually beneficial, but would never happen even if were legal.
.

It does happen to an extent, for example my council owns and runs a recruitment business... since it already has to provide office space etc for recruitment to itself, it decided to offer recruitment services to other public authorities. I can see similar businesses being set up to offer IT services to schools, and etc.

Sir_Humphrey

tomterm8 wrote: »

It does happen to an extent, for example my council owns and runs a recruitment business... since it already has to provide office space etc for recruitment to itself, it decided to offer recruitment services to other public authorities. I can see similar businesses being set up to offer IT services to schools, and etc.

What Green is proposing is not actually that new.

When I was a kid (1980s) in my very small primary school (at one time about 18 pupils or so over 6 years), all the stuff used to come in boxes from the Yorkshire Purchasing Association. These issued catalogues like Banner might, except their stuff was properly priced (I saw them as a parent was on the governors).

http://www.ypo.co.uk/index.jsp?t=glance

Just found this link from Feb 1997 which makes intersting reading:

http://www.thelawyer.com/cross-county-trade-routes-set-fair-after-high-court-scrutiny/92623.article

blueboy43

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

His idea for governments to delay payment is nuts. That would cause bankruptcies amongst the Government's smaller providers, and would discourage them applying for govt work. That would make the govt more vulnerbale to being exploited by larger corporations.

A very anti-small/medium sized business measure.

I thought his point was, why pay IBM, Microsoft, DELL and all the IT consultants and management consultants within 5-10 days ?

However it was only supposed to be SME's paid in this timescale. Standard terms remained at 30 days for eveyone else.
It also was an interim measure during current economic climate.

In addition, as the Government can borrower cheaper than anyone else, they should be concentrating on getting the best price not trying to slow payments down.

kabayiri

I worked alongside a guy who was contracting in to the Revenue through 4 or 5 layers. (5 years ago now)

Once each layer had loaded in their charges his daily rate went from 450 to over 850.

That's 400 per day in charges!

It doesn't take a genius to work out where the cream is...

This was at a time when a certain well known bank was pushing all its agency providers to accept 100 a week comission.

You have to wonder where this relaxed attitude to costs comes from.