Surrey council savings hinge on suppliers

Surrey County Council  plans to make a quarter of a targeted £19.4m savings in its environmental services by bearing down on suppliers’ costs.

Savings from the SE7 Alliance project to reduce costs through effective supply chain management will start to flow in the coming financial year of 2012/13, according to a report on how the environment directorate can maintain existing service levels whilst saving £19.4m by 2017.

The alliance of seven South East highway authorities decided  against drawing up regional framework contracts last year and instead opted to collectively reduce supply chain costs by comparing prices, jointly ordering, transporting and storing materials and potentially also joint purchasing (LTT 25 Mar 2011).

The report by Ian Boast, assistant director, environment, at Surrey, says that the supply chain collaboration project for highways and other environmental services will save £5.1m over five years, including £2.1m in 2012/13, while also delivering new local employment opportunities and customer service improvements.

The SE7 project is led by Jason Russell, Surrey’s assistant director – highways. He is speaking at LTT’s ‘Future of Highways Delivery’ conference on 21 March.