No sooner had we posted our views on the departure of UK Government CPO, John Collington, than his successor is announced (see Collington joins long list of Cabinet Office departures). And it is one of the names in the frame – Bill Crothers, Executive Director of Supplier Relations at the Cabinet Office. Crothers is also Crown Representative for five suppliers.
Crothers’ career history is very similar to Collington’s. It wasn't until 2007 that he joined the Civil Service. Prior to his time in Government, he had a long career in the private sector – over 20 years with Accenture (on the UK board from 1995) and 3 years at KPMG qualifying as a chartered accountant. His tenure in the Civil Service started with a role as Commercial Executive Director at the Identity & Passport Service, coinciding with the delivery of the National Identity Scheme. His role was later expanded with the title Executive Director, CIO & Commercial within the agency (September 2010). Collington also had a long career in the private sector and was Home Office Commercial Director before Crothers.
We met Crothers back in February just before his move to his current role in the Cabinet Office. He is a very amiable person but very tough-talking when it comes to dealing with suppliers to UK Government. He was one of the contract negotiators under Francis Maude during the infamous ‘Maude Moments’ of 2010. He described the first phase of the contract negotiations as a “negotiation of embarrassment” i.e. getting to the bottom of where suppliers were overpricing. He was not impressed with situations where contracts had been signed with suppliers only to result in government paying out three of four times the value of the deal over its life. He was also very keen to support new entrants into the sector, highlighting the defence contractors, Indian companies, and ‘new age’ companies (like Google, Amazon, Savvis and Rackspace), as well as SMEs, as businesses with which Government could do more business.
When we met Crothers, he believed that Government was entering ‘Phase 3’ of the negotiations, namely working with suppliers on innovative ideas involving, for example, structural reform, to help the public sector meet its objectives. That’s good news for suppliers. However, the appointment of Crothers indicates that suppliers should continue to expect tough negotiations when the Cabinet Office is involved.