Colleges are charging excessive management fees to small companies who need funding for apprenticeship schemes. With charges as high as 39 percent, the practice is undermining the funding arrangemnents.

The Skills Funding Agency introduced minimum contract values in 2011 in a move to streamline funding arrangements. The result was that smaller providers had to choose between forming a consortium or setting up as a subcontractor for larger providers.

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The NHS procurement strategy will result in a 6 per cent cost saving. Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust expects to reduce the orthopaedic procurement bill by 23 per cent.

The NHS spends annually £20bn on procurement and it expects that the new strategy, launched in March 2012, will cut the bill by £1.2bn. Rotherham has almost quadrupled this saving by buying in the expertise of procurement consultancy Inverto to support the Trust¹s Procurement Team.

Read more on ROTHERHAM SHOWS THE WAY IN CUTTING NHS PROCUREMENT BILL…