As many readers will know the National School of Government - the former Civil Service College, closes in March next year.

This is the new slogan I used on the recent white paper - Having it All - which is starting to resonate across the UK public sector.

Today sees the launch of the Keep Calm and Save Money campaign backed by Ken Cole's new white paper "Having It All". The white paper is specifically aimed at English local authorities that want to improve services, reduce council taxes and balance their budgets

Ken Cole will be speaking at the UK SME Public Procurement Conference on 15th September 2011 in Central London.

Hot off the presses today two new and one re-published documents regarding SRD in the public sector. Download them from the Guidance, Policy and Practice section of the knowledge store.

Communities and Local Government (CLG) clearly does have an uncanny knack of making itself a laughing stock when it makes any utterance about procurement. Whether this is the fault of its civil servants or headline seeking politicians is a moot point!

Having already gotten local authorities publishing transactions over £500 in the name of transparency, it seems that the use of the Government Procurement Card (GPC) - suitably misnamed as a credit card is now stirring up passions.

The BBC News service were very quick to refer to leaked government documents that suggest the Coalition has decided the "wholesale outsourcing" of public services to the private sector would be politically "unpalatable".

No, you haven't read that incorrectly. This is in relation to the article produced in this month's Supply Management regarding the £800m saving attributed to central government as a result of contract renegotiation.

Public procurement officials clearly are not in favour as far the PM is concerned. At a recent Tory conference he stated that they "think that the answer to everything is a big contract