2006
Government procurement heavyweight opens in Canberra
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27 February 2006
Real time, end-to-end, online procurement and an increased focus on customer needs are the two key trends that will reshape the future of government services as we know them, according to Michael O’Higgins, member of PA Consulting Group’s International Board and head of PA’s Government Services Group.
Mr O’Higgins, who also heads PA’s Health Consulting Practice, is in Australia for the official opening of PA’s Canberra office today. PA is an independent, global multi-disciplinary management, systems and technology consulting firm.
Mr O’Higgins said most governments around the globe currently have a combination of manual and e-commerce procurement systems, which inevitably decrease efficiency, increase mistakes and dramatically slow the procurement chain.
“This out of date procurement system is set to change in most markets, including Australia. For example, in the UK the Office of Government Commerce has contracted with PA to come up with a radical new approach to online procurement of goods and services by the public sector, aimed at boosting the use of electronic trading, raising efficiency and reducing costs.”
The system, launched this month, provides one simple end-to-end process for public sector customers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to trade fully online with suppliers. Even invoicing is done electronically.
The system is expected to save an average of £41 per fully automated transaction compared to a manual procurement system.
“The beauty of this system is that many large public sector organisations have already invested heavily in e-procurement systems,” said O’Higgins. “With the right incentives for buyers and suppliers, these can be readily integrated with the new system.
”We are confident that the governments of most developed countries are all heading in this direction in some form or another, and the resulting savings and efficiencies are bound to have a hugely beneficial impact on taxpayers.
O’Higgins said that while the modernising of government services to be genuinely more responsive to customer’s needs had been paid lip service by many governments, including the UK, that too was changing rapidly.
“For the first time in my career I recently saw a customer service request for proposal from a large public sector hospital group in the UK – this is a first in the UK and Australia will certainly follow suit very quickly if this government wants to keep up with others.
"While private companies have been using customer service as a key deliverable and differentiator for some time, governments have lagged. Taxpayer expectations are now benchmarked by the private sector and they are increasingly expecting the same service from government.
"Transforming the customer services departments of any organisation from a hard-to-navigate labyrinth of different departments to a user-friendly one-stop call centre is a big ask, but with careful management and a well structured, strategic approach, it can be achieved.
“The Westminster City Council did it by rethinking their entire business model from the customer’s point of view, which is an approach that the private sector has been taking for years. Westminster’s approach was to stand back and think about what their 200,000 citizens wanted when they picked up their phone, a pen, or a mouse to make contact with the council, which quickly identified areas for improvement.
“The bottom line is that customers want information from one source without being shunted from pillar to post. So instead of merely bolting on a call centre, Westminster went through an extensive outsourcing procurement process to find a private supplier to train front office staff and then persuaded as many of the council’s existing staff as possible to move over to the private firm.
“Financial modelling has suggested the new system could generate considerable cost-savings and deal with more queries more time efficiently. The separate departments of the council were re-engineered to free employees from spending their time answering hundreds of calls, allowing them to focus on delivering their core services far more efficiently.
“The result was a significant improvement in the quality of the customers’ experience and it continues to reduce the cost per customer contact.".
Mr O’Higgins said that following the success of Westminster City Council, other UK government departments have approached PA for advice.
“Put simply, what we did with Westminster is being seen as a blueprint for the way public services should operate into the future,” Mr O’Higgins concluded.
O’Higgins has 25 years' international experience of consulting on public policy strategy, information systems and change management across the European Union, Hungary, Hong Kong, Turkey and Poland. His current and recent client assignments are focused on e-business and public service modernisation and he leads the team working with the UK government on the global roll-out of biometric visas for the UK.
For further information please contact:
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| Emma Louden |
| PA Consulting Group |
| 146 Arthur Street North Sydney |
| Sydney |
| 2060 |
| Australia |
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Tel: +61 2 9964 2262 |
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Fax: +61 2 9964 2233 |
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E-mail:
emma.louden@paconsulting.com |
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Notes to editors
About PA
PA Consulting Group is a leading management, systems and technology consulting firm. Operating worldwide in more than 35 countries, PA draws on the knowledge and experience of 3,000 people, whose skills extend from the initial generation of ideas, insights, solutions and new technology, all the way through to detailed implementation.
From the development of innovative strategies and solutions right through to their successful delivery, all of our work and support is based on deep sector insight and expertise. We work across the private and public sectors, with particular strengths in financial services, energy, life sciences and healthcare, government and public services, manufacturing, and telecommunications. We help our clients to design optimum strategies for growth, deliver effective IT that improves business performance, mobilise human resources, deliver complex programmes and major business transformations, and develop breakthrough products and processes through our unique applied technology capability.
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PA’s independent, benefits-driven approach is founded on our strength in innovation, our responsiveness to our clients’ needs, and our unyielding focus on delivery:
Innovation. Innovation comes in a variety of forms - in how customers' needs are identified and satisfied, in business models, in motivating and aligning staff, in the use of technology, and many more. PA has an unsurpassed track record in innovation, from developing pharmaceutical anti-counterfeiting measures and wireless technologies, to helping launch an innovative online bank, to development work that is helping alleviate poverty and boost the economies of developing countries.
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Michael O’Higgins' biography
Michael is a member of the International Board of PA Consulting Group and heads its overall Government Consulting Group and its Health consulting practice. He has 25 years' international experience of consultancy on public policy strategy, information systems and change management.
His clients in the UK have included most major government departments, as well as bodies such as the Youth Justice Board and local and health authorities. He has also led major assignments throughout the European Union, in Hungary, Hong Kong, Turkey and Poland, working both for governments and for international organisations such as the World Bank.
He is currently chairing the External Panel advising the UK Minister of Health on Commissioning a Patient-Led NHS, which is the restructuring intended to distinguish the commissioning from the provision of health care in order, among other things, to shift resources from hospital to community provision. Last year he chaired the Review of Research Ethics Committees in the health service, again on behalf of the Minister for Health.
His current and recent client assignments are focused on e-business and public service modernisation, both across government and in individual departments. In particular, he is leading the team working with UKvisas on the global roll-out of biometric visas for the UK.
Prior to joining PA in January 1997, Michael had been a partner in the consultancy division of Price Waterhouse. Before that he worked at the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in Paris (where he wrote The Future of Social Protection) and held academic appointments at Harvard, Bath and the Australian National Universities. He was also a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee for Health and Social Security during the 1980s and a Visiting Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics during the 1990s.
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