Queen’s Speech Featuring Defence Reform Bill Stirs Controversy

The Defence Reform bill, which was featured in the latest speech of the Queen has sparked a fresh controversy throughout the United Kingdom. Following mismanagement concerns, plans to partially privatise military procurement and boost reserves are being scrutinized. Union leaders, industry experts, and former military personnel are already in an uproar since the announcement has been made.

In the legislation's  first piece, the Queen had mentioned a partial privatisation of the DE&S (Defence Equipment and Support), MoD (Ministry of Defence) department. At present, the DE&S has a staff of roughly 16,000 and an annual budget of about £14 billion. But, future performance is vital for the department's survival because it has suffered numerous failures in the past. As the funds have already shrunk, at stake are thousands of jobs in case the new legislation fails.

Reforms will make way for private companies and alleviate the DE&S' financial burden. Private organisations will also be provided with access to highly-classified information concerning the purchases and supplies of defence equipment worth billions of pounds.

In effect, the latest laws will convert the DE&S into an agency that is owned by the government but operated by contractors. The law is revolutionary because there is no other military power worldwide that has privatised such an important department of defence.

The US is alarmed in particular by this impending partial privatisation. “Putting contractors in roles normally filled by government employees and the effects this would have on ongoing and future operations,” said a concerned unnamed officer. Washington officials may no longer consider the UK the confidante it used to be.

The other piece of the legislation that was announced in the speech of the Queen involves  military forces, adjusting reserves and cutting army numbers so that the reduction is balanced. The British army is expected to reduce by about 20 per cent, whereas reserves will likely increase from 17,000 to approx. 30,000. In compliance with the move, the MoD would fund equipment and extensive training, in the amount of about £1.8 billion.

However, recruitment seems to have become a challenging proposition for the military. A white paper would be published soon explaining how the MoD plans to boost reserves and increase enrolment to comply with latest legislation. Meanwhile, more details will likely surface, with more heated debates kicking off concerning the partial privatisation of the DE&S.

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Royal Bank of Scotland Requires Diverse Supply Chain for Success

According to the head of procurement at RBS, Jonathan Sutherland, a diverse supply chain remains the key factor driving success at the bank. Mr.  Jonathan also noted that SMEs' participation is also vital for the bank's long term success mainly because the bank has most SME customers serving about 32% of the sector. This implies that the success of RBS is largely dependant on the success of these SMEs.  Jonathan described these companies as “growth makers".

“A healthy SME market is a healthy client base, which is a healthy RBS, so why would we not be [supporting SMEs through our supply chain]? There is a strategic imperative for us in this. For us it’s a case of strategy, not philanthropy,” as per Mr Jonathan.

Recently, RBS lost its global head of portfolio investment management and money markets after Neil Hookway announced that he would quit to join independent provider of advisory, software services and business consulting IT to the investment banking community, Rule Financial. Mr Hookway took over as the Domain Group's principal consultant. Previously, he has worked in the eurozone contingency preparation programme of RBS and will set his new post immediately.

Cast UK- a Leading Supply Chain Recruitment Consultancy in the UK

As a leading supply chain recruiter in the UK, Cast UK continues to help candidates find ideal roles in the industry and vice versa. Are you searching for a suitable supply chain management jobs or an ideal candidate to fill out the vacancy in your organisation? Cast UK can help!

Widnes Vikings Takes the Help of Cast UK to Find Ideal Candidates

Recently, Cast UK finalised a kit sponsorship deal with Widnes St Maries Vikings- a firm that was previously recognised as a stupendous feeder club for the Superleague side Widnes Vikings RLFC.

Established by a school headmaster and his pupils in 1937, Widnes St Maries was an open-age community club. While competing in the local leagues, the club got to discover and develop local talent. Many of the members of the club continued cutting it in the professional game.  Selling of the players by the Widnes RLFC indeed enabled the club to survive and prosper. However, in June last year (2012), the club had forged a partnership with Widnes Vikings which resulted in their name being changed to St Maries Vikings. Furthermore, the Stobart Stadium's  hallowed turf  would play their home fixtures. Please click here to know more: http://www.castuk.com/supply-chain-jobs-recruitment

Cast UK- the Leading Supply Chain Recruiter in the UK

Based out in Manchester, Cast UK is a leading supply chain recruiter and recruitment consultancy that caters to the logistics, procurement and supply chain sectors at director as well as manager levels. The consultants and founders of Cast UK come from have extensive experience in these backgrounds. That's why; Cast UK is capable of offering both the candidates and clients an assurance that their needs will be addressed none but the expert recruiters in the industry.

“To read about St Maries’ illustrious history is quite humbling, and knowing they are in good hands as part of the Vikings is reassuring,” he said. “That Cast UK is playing its part in maintaining their funding gives me a real lift, and I hope their continued success gives inspiration to a generation of young people. We have a number of clients based around Widnes, Runcorn and South Liverpool, so it’s great to strengthen our links with the area,” the  Logistics Managing Director of Cast UK, Gary Robinson is proud of the affiliation.

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Chemical Company Finds Ideal Candidate for the Job with Cast UK

While Tennants Distribution was founded back in the 1700s, it is a thoroughly modern company that manufactures, stores and delivers bulk chemicals throughout the world. If considered from the commercial standpoint, the operation of this company is complex enough with powdered, liquid and solid materials in portfolio. However, considering the amount of legal compliance and safety regulation the company has to deal with faultlessly, it's evident that that Tennants Distribution requires directors and managers that hail from the industry's highest ranks.

Last year in October 2012, there arose an opportunity for the role of Depot and Operations Manager at a Tennants' depot. One of the leading recruitment agencies, Cast UK for creating a shortlist of ideal candidates for them. This did not come as an accident; Cast UK has over the years emerged as the go-to company within the supply chain, logistics and procurement sectors. This leading logistics recruitment consultancy has its base in the UK and deals only with these industries in specific, at managerial as well as executive level. Notably, Cast UK has sourced all its own staff as well from within those sectors. Based out of offices in Birmingham, London and Manchester, Cast UK deals with entire UK as well as into Europe. The consultancy successfully found the ideal candidate for Tennants, thus saving them the time and expense of doing it alone, as well as giving them access to Cast UK's impressive database of manager-level candidates.

The Managing Director of Cast UK's, Wayne Brophy was happy having placed yet another manager with a prominent distribution company and said, “This was not the sort of job anyone with logistics experience could walk straight into.” “The candidate chosen by Tennants had a very specific set of skills, and to find them in one person probably would have taken many months for the company. It was great to be able to speed up the process and find a quality candidate.”

Government all Set to Streamline Digital Procurement Process

As per the latest announcement from the government, it is planning to remove several barriers preventing companies that are vying for digital public sector contracts. By doing so; the government intends to open up the opportunity windows for SMEs within the process of procurement.

Criticizing the current contracts awarding system, Chloe Smith- the cabinet office parliamentary secretary says it is “stacked against” the small and medium-sized enterprises. She insists action must be taken to make the playing field even.

Ms Smith suggests drastic changes in the application procedure aspect are required because it is lengthy and complex at present. She says this "unnecessary process" need to be stripped away to "open up government business to a broader range of suppliers".

The announcement follows the Government Digital Service and the Government Procurement Service agreeing on a new 'digital procurement framework'. Reportedly, the framework aims bring forth a larger pool of software providers so that recently-announced plans are implemented and government payment services are brought online.

Dissatisfaction of the SMEs with the current system is quite evident. Most SMEs find the system has quite "unachievable" financial requirements on smaller companies that apply for public service contracts, as per by Ms Smith. These conditions are "designed to serve the needs of procureaucrats not business," she adds.

One the new changes are in place, chances of SMEs winning more public sector contracts would increase. Consequently, there would be a surge in recruitment for procurement jobs nationwide, not only in the digital sector but others as well.

In the meantime, another study conducted by Office Depot has indicated that businesses will place greater significance on issues like that of corporate social responsibility and sustainability while choosing their suppliers.

Procurement representatives and managers of various companies were surveyed as part of the study, with majority of these (about 80%) consenting that these issues may become more significant in the process of decision-making in following couple of years, even if one-in-five businesses presently rate them as the least important factors.

For about one in three companies, however, a supplier's ethical credentials were the most important aspect of sustainability, whereas about 17.4 per cent believe the carbon footprint of a supplier of greater importance.

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London Readies for Hydrogen-powered Transport: Report

In the wake of the increasing awareness among logistics providers about their carbon footprint, the coming years might see an enormous demand for hydrogen-powered vehicles soon turning into a big problem.

As per a recent report by Link 51- the leading storage solutions supplier , sustainable development, climate change and energy conservation are amongst the top priorities among most supply chain bosses. Therefore, it comes as an excellent welcome news that London and the south-east will soon see the installation of the first hydrogen fuelling stations, as part of an endeavour to create the govt.'s so-called "integrated hydrogen transport network".

Funded by the Technology Strategy Board, the LHNE (London Hydrogen Network Expansion) project is expected to make way for a "state-of-the-art fast-fill 700 bar renewable hydrogen fuelling station network". It is expected that, as a result of this project, the sustainable fuel powered transport vehicles will likely take over the country's supply chain running.

As commercially available hydrogen-powered vehicles are all set to hit the market in coming years, manufacturers of car are fast opting for 700-bar fuelling stations' installation countrywide. If rolled out nationwide, this plan has the potential to change transport manager job's nature in the UK. In the meantime, the govt. has been working towards resolving the confusion concerning the award of contracts for running its rail service franchises.

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Nuclear Supply Chain Action Plan Likely to Bring Forth New Jobs

The British government has recently launched a Nuclear Supply Chain Action Plan (NSCAP) in the wake of the fact that nations across the globe are making a swift switch towards becoming low-carbon economies. The plan has been devised with the goal of capitalising on the soaring demand of nuclear services worldwide. With this, the UK hopes to emerge as one of the leaders and prominent players in the industry.

According to the OND (Office for Nuclear Development) the government is working in close coordination with nuclear reactor vendors so that a globally competitive UK supply chain is established. OND has estimated that about 30,000 new jobs, including supply chain management jobs, would be produced with the industry all set to create approximately 16GW of new nuclear capacity by the year 2025.

Currently, there is an "enormous gap to be filled", and contractors are invited to invest now to ensure the United Kingdom does not fall behind the leading nations like Germany and France, as per Ernie Richardson- the UPF SAB chairman.

The NSCAP has pledged to commence the development of Britain's nuclear supply chain without wasting time. As part of the endeavour, they have already launched a campaign to employ about 500 skilled employees at the Sellafield nuclear facility in West Cumbria. Hirings will be done for trainees, apprentices, graduates as well as military veterans.

As Britain is all set for a "nuclear renaissance", leaders of the nuke industry are taking inspiration from Olympic Games held this summer particularly the immensely successful logistical operation that made the event all the more memorable.

The nuke project of the nation should follow the example set by the Olympic Games. Essentially, clients, governments, contractors and the entire supply chain need to work together or be ready to let a "huge opportunity" go by, as  per Howard Shiplee- the executive director of Laing O'Rourke- a multinational construction company.

Reportedly, the NSCAP has taken a note of key factors that are apparently preventing organisations from stepping into the nuke market. The NSCAP has also included details on how to address these issues.

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