We can safely add a third factor to Benjamin Franklin’s quote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”  That element is “procurement pressure” – the need to squeeze ever more out of public sector budgets that are guaranteed to be slashed year on year for the life of the current government. Austerity doesn’t impact just those in receipts of frontline services but also at the public servants who are charged with delivering the means and the framework in which to provide them. Procurement officers. Colin Cram (public sector consultant specialising in procurement) writing in the Guardian on 2nd July 2015 reckons that the public sector could save billions without cutting frontline services. He outlines several possible approaches and summarises by saying “The potential for public sector efficiencies would appear to be at least £35bn a year, over one third being from unprotected budgets.” That is a lot of money and his guess is as good as anybody else’s. However, looking at it from another angle, if we accept that the total public sector spend, including government, NHS and defence, is somewhere north of £250 billion annually, then £35 billion is 14% give or...