Government procurement teams are responsible for managing billions of pounds of public expenditure, in fact, every year £300 billion is spent on contracts for public services. What is value? Thinking about how the Government gets ‘value for money’ out of this procurement spending is an important exercise. Value has previously perhaps been too narrowly defined …
Resolving Insolvency
The Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill is currently in the House of Lords. It is clearly a Bill in two parts. The first part deals with business rate valuations in the light of Covid-19 and the second provides for the investigation and disqualification of the former directors of dissolved companies. As this …
British Paralympic Association appoints Chair
It is tremendous today to see that Professor Nick Webborn has been appointed Chair of the British Paralympic Association. Nick has extensive experience of so many aspects of the Paralympic Games, Paralympic sport, sports medicine and so much more. He has attended eleven Paralympic Games in various roles. I first met Nick when he was …
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Paralympic Games 1988:
A Coming of Age Games On this day, in 1988 I was racing at the Paralympic Games in Seoul. A good Games made great by being held in the same city as the Olympic Games for the first time in 24 years. Although big respect, to Tokyo, in 1964 for being the first city ever …
Crypto regulation in the UK
There is an unrivalled opportunity for the UK to lead in crypto in terms of rules, regulations, words and welcome. Crypto is not a silver bullet nor indeed the solution to all our ills, but it holds a real and sustainable opportunity for us all in the UK and we must consider carefully what we require from …
My first Paralympic Games – Seoul 1988
Thirty three years ago today I boarded a plane to my first Paralympic Games in Seoul. Aged sixteen and with limited experience of foreign travel let alone experience of competition at that level. I had no idea how extraordinary the experience would be, what the Games would feel like and what it would be like …
Cash must be protected
It was my pleasure to take part in this evening’s ‘In Touch’ programme on BBC Radio 4 (5th October 2021) about access to cash. I have long been campaigning on cash, the need for it to continue, to be accessible, available and inclusive. This was the subject of this evening’s show, obviously focussing specifically on …
Public Appointments Disability Data Disaster
In 2018 I conducted an independent review for the Government exploring how to open up public appointments to disabled people. I made several practical recommendations covering data collection and transparency, methods of attracting and nurturing talent and best approaches and adjustments at application and interview stage. I was delighted that the government accepted the principle …
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AI: applied intelligence
Yesterday (20th September 2021), I was delighted to co host the latest evidence session for the All Party Parliamentary Group on AI. This was the third in a series we have been running to seek input to the National AI strategy. And, perhaps it was the most important as we were considering the opportunity to …