Colin Cram has held senior positions in the public sector for the past 30 years, including central (including the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury) and local government, higher education and the wider public sector. He has been responsible throughout for initiating and implementing innovative strategies for procurement, shared services, outsourcings and organisational re-engineering. Savings from his initiatives exceed £1bn.

Colin has created and managed several pioneering joint and shared service procurement organisations, influencing spend of up to £7bn a year. He was a founder member of the Central Unit on Purchasing (the forerunner of the Office of Government Commerce), created and led the Research Councils' Procurement Organisation, the Benefits Agency Contracts Organisation and was first director of the North Western Universities' Purchasing Consortium. Latterly he was Director of the North West Centre of Excellence, creating and delivering collaborative opportunities in procurement and shared services for 47 local authorities.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, Colin has been appointed a senior adviser to the Office of Government Commerce and is a member of SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives). He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences and training events, and is a regular contributor to professional journals. He has been a member of European working groups on Procurement, Innovation and Sustainability. He runs a successful consultancy, Marc1 Ltd.


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Susan Gregory HMI became one of Her Majesty's Inspectors (Schools) on 1 September 2000. She took up the post of National Director, Inspection Delivery, on 1 January 2011.

Immediately prior to her appointment as HMI, she was on secondment to a local authority. Her earlier career was in teaching, and she spent over eleven years as headteacher of two schools in the primary sector.

Presentation: Outsourcing frontline services

The private sector will be involved increasingly with the delivery of frontline services. Getting the delivery model right will be critical to its success and raises issues well beyond those associated with the outsourcing of back office services.

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