Digby Barker, PASS Consultant
Drawing on his consultancy experience and government background – including posts in MoD HQ and HM Treasury – Digby specialises in helping companies win and profit from public sector business, advising in particular on marketing strategy and tender preparation. His experience includes research, operational/decision analysis, resource allocation, project management and acquisition, especially the development of procurement strategies, ITTs and tender evaluation schemes.
Doug Bridson MBA FCIPS, PASS Consultant
Doug has worked in the procurement field since completing a Business Studies degree in the 1970s. The greater part of his career has been spent in manufacturing industry although the last 12 years have been in the utilities sector, latterly as Procurement Director for Scottish Power plc. Most recently he led the initiative to file an application with the EU for exemption from the Utilities Directive for those parts of the UK energy industry fully exposed to competition. Doug is a current member of the Board of Management of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and a Non-Executive Director of Scottish Enterprise (Ayrshire).
Martin Compton, PASS Consultant
Martin is a procurement professional trained by the Ford Motor Company. As an innovator, motivator and experienced negotiator, he is a progressive procurement practitioner with supply chain skills and extensive public and private sector experience, both in the UK and abroad. His training, interim management, and electronic procurement.
Colin M. Cram FCIPS, PASS Consultant
Colin, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, has held senior positions in public sector procurement for the past 25 years, including central government, higher education and local authorities. He has been responsible throughout for initiating and implementing innovative procurement strategies for a wide range of goods, services and outsourcings and creating and re-engineering procurement organisations and collaborative groups. Savings from his initiatives exceed £1bn. Colin was the Director and founder of the North West Centre of Excellence. This has led the drive for efficiencies through collaboration, joint procurement organisations and better practice across 47 local authorities. Its scope has included procurement, construction, shared services, health and social care and the national lead for local passenger transport. Third party spend by the authorities amounts to £6.9bn a year. Colin was the first Director of the North Western Universities Purchasing Consortium. He created and was the Director of the Benefits Agency Contracts Organisation and created and was the first Director of the Research Councils’ Procurement Organisation. He was a founder member of the Central Unit on Purchasing, which was the forerunner of the Office of Government Commerce, and has run a successful procurement consultancy business. An OGC accredited consultant, he is a regular speaker at national and international seminars and training events, lectures on university degree courses and is a regular contributor to professional journals. He is an advisor to a EU working groups on Procurement and Innovation.
Stephen Dickinson, PASS Consultant
Formerly Director of Procurement at the South West London Procurement Alliance and Head of Purchasing for Kingston Hospital NHS Trust, Stephen has implemented considerable development in procurement management during his career of almost 40 years in the NHS, leading both hospital-based and multi-authority teams. He has worked closely on ensuring that equality and diversity and procurement goals are aligned through effective procurement and commissioning, including contributing to the DH Mosaic project. He has a particular interest in the development of small businesses within service provision to public authorities and has worked on SME compliance with the public contract regulations and ensuring value for money. Stephen has lectured on both graduate and postgraduate courses in public sector procurement and commercial relationships.
Derek Gaynor, PASS Consultant
Derek has worked in all areas of procurement since 1982. His career has been mainly in the public sector and he has been Procurement Officer at National University of Ireland, Maynooth since 1998. In that role he has overseen the implementation of a variety of centralized contracts, implemented procurement procedures and provided proactive support for the academic and administrative departments of the University. He is a member of CIPS, the IIPMM and the Forum on Public Procurement in Ireland. Prior to 1998, he worked as an Officer of the Defence Forces and at several United Nations missions both in the Middle East and Central America.
Steve Gilbey, PASS Consultant
Steve has a long track record in the local government procurement community, having left local government after 36 years to become a procurement advisor. He is currently working with IDeA, 4ps and SBV Ltd on a procurement training initiative in the light of the National Procurement Strategy, as well as a number of practical procurement projects with other public sector clients. Since his appointment in 1986 as head of Hertfordshire County Council's procurement service, Steve has been instrumental in raising the profile of procurement both within Hertfordshire and on the national scene. He has a deep and continuing commitment to public sector procurement and has been instrumental in the development of standards and best practice guidance that have been widely copied. He has brought a level of leadership to Hertfordshire procurement that is widely admired; amongst his other achievements for Hertfordshire are the attainment of a Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) award for the standard of excellence in purchasing policies and procedures, and being the first organisation of its type to gain ISO14001 certification. The most obvious of many examples of his commitment to public sector procurement is his pivotal role in founding and developing the Central Buying Consortium (CBC), which has grown from a small grouping of six local authorities to its current position as the largest local authority purchasing consortium in the country, with a membership of 17 authorities and a voice on procurement forums at the highest level. He chaired the consortium's Management Committee between 1998 and 2003. Steve has also been the chair of the Association of County Supplies Officers prior to its joining with other agencies to form SOPO (Society of Procurement Officers in Local Government). He had an influencing role in the formation of SOPO, and for the past five years has been a leading member of the National Executive Committee, as well as a Director. Steve has been active within CIPS, most recently as a member of the Appointments Board but also as vice chair of a CIPS technical committee. As well as his input to these organisations, he has also been involved in a number of other procurement-related projects including work on the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy's Commissioning Joint Committee publications, several guidance booklets for SOPO, and input into the development of the National Procurement Strategy and the Procurement Performance Indicators recently published by IDeA.
Florence Gregg, PASS Consultant

Florence has over 25 years’ procurement experience gained in the Health Service and Higher Education sectors. She was Head of Purchasing at Queen's University Belfast from January 1998 to May 2004, where she managed change, implemented e-procurement solutions and developed a proactive, supportive procurement function working with the institution's decentralised part-time buyers. Since then, Florence has worked as a purchasing consultant specialising in performance and efficiency measurement; competitive tendering guidance to both buyers and suppliers; and the development and implementation of procurement strategies, policies and procedures. Her clients include the UK Higher Education sector; Learning and Skills Council; Central Procurement Directorate Northern Ireland; Dublin City Council; BiP Solutions Ltd; and various universities and local authorities in the UK and Ireland. She is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars in the UK, Ireland and USA, and is a Chartered Institute of Arbitrators accredited mediator.
David Griffiths, PASS Consultant
David was Head of Supply Chain at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, and has spent some 25 years in purchasing and contracts within central government. He has been responsible for procurement policy and planning, including the contractual aspects of Better Quality Services, supply chain management and the professional development of staff within DVLA. He is a graduate member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and a member of IPSERA.
Julie Harmer, PASS Consultant
Julie has worked in the public sector for 35 years and has held senior procurement positions in the NHS, Higher Education and Central Government. She also has experience working in the private sector. She was part of the team that set up the first use of off-shore data capture by a government agency and has latterly been involved with the implementation of an ERP system, e-procurement solutions and the development and implementation of various procurement training solutions.
Peter Howarth, PASS Consultant
Peter has a long track record in procurement and local government. In October 2003 he started his own consultancy and training company (SBV Ltd) specialising in procurement and contracting matters, primarily in the public sector. He is currently the Chief Executive of the Society of Procurement Officers in Local Government (SOPO). Prior to that he had spent three years with the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) where he worked as a member of the team developing IDeA Marketplace. He is also a member of the National e-Procurement Project board, a Director of the Ipswich and Sudbury Enterprise Agency, primarily working on their strategy group, and is a regular conference speaker and workshop facilitator. His earlier posts include Director of Strategic Management, Associate Director of Resources and County Purchasing Officer for Suffolk County Council. Whilst at Suffolk he led on the introduction of Best Value and was responsible for a number of cross-functional projects and departments. He has also worked for Shropshire County Council as Deputy County Supplies Officer. Peter spent 15 years in engineering procurement, primarily with British Leyland - originally in the Automotive division working on development projects for sports cars such as the TR7, and then in the Special Projects division, mainly for Coventry Climax. Peter is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and a member of IPSERA. He was one of the first graduates from the Birmingham University MBA in Strategic Procurement and also holds a degree in Applied Economics, but maintains that serving an apprenticeship in a Coventry car factory prepared him for most things in life!
Gareth Jones, PASS Consulant
Gareth has worked in the procurement field since 1971. The greater part of his career has been in the public sector, initially with the National Coal Board and thereafter 22 years in healthcare purchasing. He commenced as a Higher Clerical Officer in Bedford Healthcare and left for the Department of Transport having risen to the post of Director of Central Procurement for Health and Personal Social Services in Northern Ireland. Throughout his health sector career he was involved in strategic contractual tasks and duties at regional and national levels. In 1992 Gareth moved to the Department of Transport and undertook major change programmes and detailed contractual work, most notably in relation to privatisations and outsourcing contracts in service provision. In 1997 the Department of Transport became a constituent part of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions and Gareth became its first Head of Procurement. Since leaving the public service Gareth has undertaken a major procurement review for the House of Commons. In consultancy terms, his major clients have included Inland Revenue, Nirex, Sapient plc, Governetz Ltd and BiP Solutions. Gareth is a noted change manager with highly respected motivational, training and teaching skills. A strong academic and publishing background has reinforced these activities
Paul King , PASS Consultant
Paul has over 30 years high level management experience in both the private and public sectors. He was a county council Chief Officer, responsible for all commercial activity including tendering for work in competition with the private sector, with over 2,500 staff in five services and a £13m turnover. He was the founder, spokesman and Chair of the Forum of DSO Managers with a membership of over 30 UK local authorities. He has worked in most countries in the Middle East including Iraq and created the UK subsidiary for a large European FM company and grew the business to £5m in four years, making it the fastest growing worldwide subsidiary. He has also acted as a “company doctor” for SMEs, identifying weaknesses, creating long term stability and focussing business development and has been a regular speaker/chairman at seminars on public procurement. Between 2001 and 2005 he was CEO - Business Development for a Government contractor with sales of over £80m, generating sales of £30m p.a. including ground breaking contracts in new areas of business including the company’s first overseas contract in Israel.  He is currently consulting to the private sector and is also involved with manufacturing and distributing cutting edge renewable energy products.
David Lazenby MCIPs, PASS Consultant
David recently retired as Head of Commercial and Property Services at Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, where he was responsible for a force annual expenditure of £50 million and approximately the same again in Regional and National Contracts. His department totalled seventy people and included Purchasing, Contracts, Stores, Reprographics and Estates. David was also a member of the Force Strategy Group with a strategic remit beyond procurement issues and was one of the key players in the development of the ACPO Procurement Committee National Procurement Strategy and the creation of the Association of Police Procurement and Contracts Managers. He was a founder member of the South West and Wales Police Purchasing Consortium and its Chair until 2003. David was also a founding member of the South West Procurement Federation for local authorities and through that group was involved in the setting up of the Regional Centre of Excellence. He was also a member of the Devon Procurement Partnership. Until recently David was the elected member for the South West on the SOPO National Executive and through this and other roles developed an extensive network of contacts in procurement at all levels. Throughout his purchasing career, which began as a textile buyer for Gwent County Council in 1972, David has dealt with a comprehensive range of commodities and services understanding the strengths and weakness of specific markets and how major buying power can affect their viability.
Trevor Linton MCIPS, PASS Consultant
Trevor has spent over 40 years in the building industry and is a chartered quantity surveyor. He has extensive procurement experience gained with both the public sector and commercial organisations. He was a Project Sponsor/Project Manager in Defra and led the first multi-occupied PFI office accommodation project and the team remediating Britain’s only WWII mustard gas factory. During his time at PSA he led a team preparing and processing financial requests and approvals to NATO international staff in Brussels. Latterly he was Head of Contract Management in the Estates Division of Defra with responsibility for preparation and agreement of Service Level Agreements together with contract negotiations. He has also been an OGC Gateway Reviewer and was a member of a Cross Government Training Group for estate management. Trevor is a member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.
Larry Petterson, PASS Consultant
Head of Procurement and Commercial Development, Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust, University Hospital of Wales. Larry was appointed Chairman of the Healthcare Supplies Association for a two and a half year period commencing 1 April 2002. He is also Head of Procurement and Commercial Development for Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust (third largest in the UK), having spent nearly 42 years in the NHS. His involvement in Purchasing and Supply commenced in 1961, as a Clerical Officer within United Cardiff Hospitals. He then held various appointments before becoming Supplies Officer with South Glamorgan Health Authority in 1975. Form 1992 to 1995 Larry was Procurement Director for Welsh Health Common Services Authority, during which time he was responsible for all NHS purchasing in Mid, South and East Wales. In 1995 Larry was appointed Head of Procurement and Commercial Development for University Hospital of Wales Trust and latterly Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust. In addition Larry also chairs the national e-business pathfinder group for Wales (covering all 108 public organisations on Wales) and the South East Wales regional forum (this covers 58 organisations in South East Wales). He also chairs the public sector group for CIPS covering OGC, MoD, health, local authorities and higher education.
Francis Pullen, PASS Consultant

Francis has specialised in eProcurement, Project Management and Change Management for both the Private and Public Sectors since 1993, including roles in a high profile UK design and development consultancy and the UK Criminal Justice system.As Principal Associate for his business Armine Associates, he has expanded the portfolio to include further key strands of business consultancy and training. Since 2003 he has been an independent seminar speaker and PASS consultant for BiP Solutions Ltd, delivering seminars for them around the UK to both Public and Private Sector audiences and helping businesses improve their processes.He is also a consultant lecturer at Cambridge Regional College Business Centre for the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) examination modules and is a member of both the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (MCIPS) and the Chartered Management Institute (MCMI) and has been published in the Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Electronic Design.

Eddie Regan, PASS Consultant
Eddie is BiP Solutions' Senior Procurement Consultant. Working alongside the Client Services team, he frequently assists public sector organisations with clarification and interpretation of EU Directives and a wide variety of legislative issues. Eddie is lead consultant on BiP's PASS Mark Health Check, an evaluation technique that helps identify how organisations in both the public and private sectors can develop more effective processes in respect of all aspects of public sector contracting. A member of the International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association (IPSERA), Eddie is also the senior adviser on BiP's unique Tender Support Helpline team, which provides advice on contracting matters to hundreds of clients. For the last 13 years Eddie has lectured regularly on procurement policy and processes at conferences and events, both on behalf of BiP and for a variety of other organisations, including the Society of Procurement Officers in Local Government (SOPO) and the Institute of Directors. He also provides in-house training on the tendering process – law and practice – to personnel in both the public and private sectors, including several multinational organisations.
John Scowen , MCIPS JP PASS Consultant
John Scowen, London Borough of Havering, Corporate Procurement Manager
John has been in the field of purchasing for 35 years, starting off in the Health Service where he worked his way from Buyer to Assistant District Supplies Manager. He has been part of local government purchasing since 1989 and has held the post of Corporate Procurement Manager for the London Borough of Havering since 1990. He was Chairman of the London Contracts and Supplies Group, Chairman of SOPO (Society of Procurement Officers in Local Government) 2002-2004. One of his objectives is to co-ordinate the purchasing of commodities throughout London and he has worked hard to achieve this. The London Contracts and Supplies Group is a forum for such activities and has had significant influence on the way purchasing has developed within London. The LCSG is now developing strong links with the Centres of Excellence to meet the demands of Efficient Procurement throughout the public sector.
John Smith, PASS Consultant

John had a long, varied and successful career in the NHS.
Having held a number of senior posts in procurement including spells as Associate Regional Commercial Manager in Wessex Regional Health Authority, National Purchasing Executive at the NHS Procurement Directorate and International Procurement Consultant at NHS Overseas Enterprises he joined NHS Estates in 2001 as Assistant NHS Housing Coordinator. In this post he worked closely with the, then, Minister of Health, John Hutton, and Senior Civil Servants at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to ensure the delivery of accessible, appropriate and affordable housing for key-workers as part of the NHS Plan. He was also responsible for formulating policy regarding the transfer of NHS housing stock to housing providers and, as such, worked on the documentation to support this. In May 2004 he moved to South West London Strategic Health Authority to cover the health economies in both South West London and Surrey and Sussex Health Authorities. As part of this work he acted as Project Manager for St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust in the negotiation of the sale and redevelopment of their accommodation to a housing association, the sale of part of the site for shared ownership housing with preferential access for Trust staff and the sale of the final part of the site for private development. The resulting deal, the largest of its type in the UK, provided 557 units of high quality keyworker housing for the Trust, 78 shared ownership units and 140 units for private sale and provided the Trust with a gross capital receipt in excess of £15 million. He also worked on a number of similar projects including Surrey and Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal West Sussex NHS Trust and Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust and is currently working on a large scheme at Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. 

Mark Woods, PASS Consultant
Mark spent over 27 years working in the public sector and held a number of senior procurement roles, including Head of Procurement at the Contributions Agency, Deputy Head of Procurement at Inland Revenue and Director of Collaborative Opportunities at the Office of Government Commerce. Much of this experience has been at the leading edge of the development of strategic procurement thinking in government, including the development of approaches to collaborative working whilst delivering stretching vfm targets. Other achievements include negotiating a number of pan government IT software deals, involvement in outsourcing and insourcing, and publication of a number of significant reports including on Open Source Software.