PPP Management

The excellent article in Supply Management identifies the costs incurred by government departments for Christmas trees in 2012, http://www.supplymanagement.com/news/2013/50-fold-price-difference-on-government-christmas-trees-0 Some questions fall out from this: "What types of trees did the FCO buy for £750 each?" "What Christmas tree do you get for £15 at the DfT? and was it on public display?" "No detail on the Christmas tree at the Treasury, does this mean the Chancellor has cancelled Christmas? austerity measures?" From our earlier comment on the BBC it would be interesting to see what the expenditure on Christmas trees by the BBC was for 2012.

The government identifies the preferred bidders to fulfil the tagging contract. http://www.supplymanagement.com/news/2013/capita-awarded-interim-electronic-tagging-contract Check out the bidders: Capita, Buddi, Astrium, Telefonica. So what does this mean? a large outsourcing firm, a niche specialist technology firm, an element of EADS making redundancies in its   satellite business and a giant Spanish telecoms firm. Which one will the government chose and what will be the ramifications for UK taxpayers and businesses? The fall out from the original findings of the tagging issue is now being played out. It should be hoped that for the credibility of the government and the for sake of the tax payers purse that the government was right....