|
Swipely www.swipely.com (opens in a new window) is a new service in the US that automatically publishes details of transactions online in a status feed similar to twitter. This got us thinking, could Swipely, or something similar be used for MP's and Member's expenses? If every MP knew that a transaction was going to appear online within minutes they would be sure to be doing the right thing with their cards. |
|
|
Welfare reform is high on the agenda and simplifying welfare is a key element of the Government's ambition. What is notable is about our benefits system is that so many of our benefits are set up to meet a particular purpose. In other words, conditional benefits, which are provided in response to an action, or in a limited capacity (can only be used in certain outlets) or where the recipient's spend is monitored. Here's a list of just a few of them: - Healthy Start Vouchers
- Education Maintenance Allowance
- Sure Start Maternity Grant
- Winter Fuel Allowance
- Independent Living Fund
- Carers allowance
- Disabled Facilities Grant
- Health in Pregnancy Grant
- Optical Vouchers
- Care to Learn
In each of these cases, Government is undertaking extensive work to develop mechanisms and networks to encourage individuals to restrict the use of the state's money responsibly, but this all comes at a cost. Healthy Start Vouchers are mailed to nearly a million people every month. Care to Learn payments are made directly to the providers on receipt of an invoice by the provider, passed from the client to the department after a strict eligibility assessment. The problem is that restricting payments makes work, it makes work for administrators, work for clients and work for suppliers, surely welfare reform needs also to look at the cost of managing payments as well as the delivery of payments? Today, delivering money to individuals is easier than it has ever been, controlling and monitoring that spend, isn't as easy as it looks and we should try to wean ourselves off the need to control spend quite so closely. |
|
Word reaches us from inside the DCLG, the new Government has taken agin some words that were commonly used by the previous administration. The first is anything to do with 'regional' or 'regionalism', the second is 'commissioning'. It is not hard to see why regional politics is being frowned at. The Tories had always opposed regionalism as a wasteful project that delivered benefit to the citizen. With both ideological and financial arguments being lined up against regionalism it is hard to see how the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships can expect to last beyond March 2011. The more interesting news is that 'commissioning' has become a banned word. As a procurement professionals we have always been concerned that the term 'commissioning' was used to obfuscate and divert attention from the fact that a financial contract was being put into place in return for services. So it is fair to ask why social care has chosen to define its contracting as somehow different from the rest of a council's purchasing activity. However, Councils understand that budget cuts will force them to review the value that they derive from all of their suppliers and it seems churlish to suggest that the vocabulary of business will protect Social Care departments from scrutiny in the search for savings. |
|
The budget makes it clear that the departments will be facing real cuts of around 25% in the coming months. Local Government is likely to face a similar challenge, yet at the same time health budgets are to be protected. As Iain Martin makes clear here, this could cause problems in the future, because there is a real need to tackle some obvious waste in the NHS. Martin argues that the problem will be that the efficiency initiatives planned for health will generate more money than can be reasonably ploughed back into health, especially when other departments are being cut so heavily. Councils risk becoming the Health Service's poor neighbours, they will be under pressure to cut costs dramatically at a time when the demand for their services will be increasing because of the aging population and the expected rise in unemployment. If that is the case, why doesn't the new Government allocate some of the NHS budget for investment in social protection, with Social Care teams becoming partially funded by NHS trusts? This may seem inappropriate when we consider the importance of housing and unemployment on social welfare, but is it not difficult to imagine that the NHS might look after the needs of those with dementia or those with severe alcoholism. |
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next > End >>
|
An overview of how local government can support local Small to Medium sized enterprise suppliers and thereby the local economy. 
"Ticon's expertise and professionalism has supported a number of Local Authorities in the region as well as assisting in the delivery of region-wide projects through the RIEP. We are always happy to recommend Ticon to councils asking for procurement support."
With over ten years of working with e-procurement software, Ticon can give you the support you need to implement and manage a wide range of e-procurement technologies. From advice on how to implement large scale enterprise solutions, to small scale web service solutions, we understand how to configure solutions to deliver the greatest savings.