The Third Sector Task Force has called for the establishment of a 250 million pound social investment bank to transform the role charities and social enterprises can play in the delivery of public services. The Taskforce wants the Government to make the bank its priority for any funding released from the Unclaimed Assets Register with immediate direct funding going to an interim bank to be created as soon as possible.

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With further snowfalls and sub-zero temperatures being forecast for many parts of the country local government leaders are warning that some councils are facing shortages of road salt. The Local Government Association said that with council gritters continuing to operate round the clock a number of councils were experiencing shortages because, in some parts of the country, stocks of salt were running low.

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This report from the National Audit Office is based on research across central government, but it has messages for all public service procurement.

Contract management is not given the priority it deserves. There is often no one individual with overall responsibility for contract management across an organization. There are few documented plans for managing individual contracts and in over a quarter of cases where plans did exist, supplier input was limited. There is a lack of structured training programmes and few contract managers hold any formal commercial qualification, for example, membership of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.

Read more on CENTRAL GOVERNMENT’S MANGEMENT OF SERVICE CONTRACTS…