Monthly Archives: October 2012

West Coast Franchise – Questions for the Minister Almost everyone is familiar with the Minister’s announcement about the West Coast Railway Franchise. It is interesting to see the commentaries emanating from all sources – being wise after the event. Readers of our briefings (see Brian Farrington Ltd news August 29th 2012) will recall that instantly […]

New York IT Procurement – Round 2 Introduction & Health Warning Please refer to our health warning in our earlier briefing paper. In this ‘episode’ we are expanding on another issue that warrants a ‘lessons learned’ review. Poor DoITT Contract Management Contributes to Increased Contract Expenditures The Audit Report comments that “DoITT did not reduce […]

Health warning – IT Procurement This risk briefing paper is based on an audit report issued by the New York City Comptroller. On April 1, 2005, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT) contracted with Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) as systems integrator for the Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP) to transform and consolidate the City’s […]

Key Performance Indicators The risk of not knowing how a supplier is performing is unacceptable. Our risk auditing services regularly provide evidence that no KPI’s exist or have not been subjected to rigorous scrutiny before they have been included in a contract. We dealt with a contract for the provision of security services to a […]

Auditing the Auditor The 2011/2012 report by the Auditor General, Singapore, provides some fascinating reading. Not least of which is the report into lapses in selection of Firms for Audit Shared Service Scheme. The Auditor General’s Office (AGO)  audited the “Request for Proposal” (RFP ) called by the Singapore Sports Council  (SSC) to select a […]

The UK is probably 8 – 12 years behind USA experience with outsourced contracts. It has been evident for some time that in-sourcing was taking place at an increasing pace, particularly with IT contracts. Unsurprisingly, the public sector has had mixed experiences with outsourced contracts for a wide variety of services. The UNISON bargaining web-site […]

BID (TENDER) BONDS This is a debt secured by a bidder for a construction project or other large ‘project’ on a tender based selection process for providing a guarantee to the potential client that the bidder will take on the contract if selected. If they decline to accept the contract the bond is forfeited, unless […]