Police Procurement
I work in IT for a UK force, possibly one above the border, not saying which. In the past before a coming together we used to have a budget and a purchase order book. My boss could sign off on pretty much anything up to command and control systems for £1M plus, we could pop to PC world, Maplins, RS or a local non chain PC shop for a couple of urgently needed connectors or order from Amazon or any other supplier that would sign up to take purchase orders and who was the cheapest supplier. If we were really desperate we could spend our cash and get it back from finance petty cash box.
Now we have a central procurement department, not finance, procurement, that's 10+ staff that weren't needed before, I find what I need, probably at Amazon or CPC, then spend 10 minutes adding a service request with all the details including justification for purchase and account code for department, this goes to my line manager who gives technical approval, it then goes to the purchasing manager for financial approval, at this point they will normally ask if we really need said items or the amount we asked for, so maybe I will cut back from the 20 price break and just ask for 10 at the higher price per unit. Of course, Amazon is not a recognised supplier so they will need to go to Misco or some other approved supplier to try and source a similar item at maybe twice the price.
I once asked for 5 miniature backlit USB keyboard about the size of a paperback book for use in vehicles, they were £9.99 at Amazon, they offered a standard with keypad non backlit keyboard as an alternative from the approved supplier at £29.99. The users ended up buying them with their own money.
The amount of times the CFO gets involved with £20 purchases is astounding.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
