It is certainly fun listening to them quoting scripture when trying to argue a scientific point though .

“Opera Solutions is a diverse and dynamic place to work. Our scientists, software engineers, sales force, consultants, and technology professionals are comfortable with ambiguity, … ”

Say one thing for them, they’ve taken that word to a massive new height of irony!

The real scandal of the SPADs is not the cost or the misconduct, but their gullibility to this sort of tripe.

OTOH, perhaps I should set up a government workwear supplier using new smart fabrics whose opaqueness is regulated in proportion to the intelligence of the beholder…

BTW, it is possible to use the word leverage and still not be wrong – I saw it once… OK I hear about it… OK I think it might be possible… no, your right, they’re dolts.

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Lack of Data

Although local government spend information is now being published, there are, as yet, few mechanisms to consolidate and compare spend data within organisations and across them. Without detailed comparable analyses, opportunities for spend leverage cannot be identified, proven, or acted upon.
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i think they may have failed to indentify and prove opportunities for spend leverage

Sadly, I have no empirical evidence to back this up, only skepticism, supposition and hearsay. This opinion is therefore as valid as anything in the “Opera Solutions white paper.”

Please submit my payment immediately.

The figures presumably assume that local government savings can only be made by doing the things local government already does more cheaply. But what if it stopped doing some things altogether? I suspect there are quite large parts of local government activities that it doesn’t really need to do at all. Would the world really come to an end if we were no longer able to call on the services of an Equality and Community Cohesion Officer from our local council when we felt the need?

I once managed a council’s procurement department and we moved all of our mobile phones onto the ‘government contract’, in about 2000. This was a centrally negotiated contract, organised by the government, and we saved a packet going there – probably around 20%.

The government contract had, IIRC, price breaks in place, so everyone’s costs would fall at 1m users and so on – this is much greater buying power than you get on price comparison sites, and there was no middle man.

I still work for a council and, as far as I now, all councils get their mobiles via the government contract, at the same rate as every government department, and have been doing so for a decade or more.

I shopped around for my personal phone contract last year and could get something approaching as cheap, but certainly not cheaper.

Generally, council staff need a phone to be contactable for short conversations, so inclusive minutes and texts don’t have much value. The big savings can be made on discounted monthly rental, low cost of entry level phone handsets and reasonable costs/minute for airtime.

If the government are stupid enough to think this report has any credibility then they need to take their procurement people to task, because the government let the contract that most/all councils use.

LET ME SHOW YOU IT