Interesting news this week that the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is looking to set up a roster of creative agencies that all government departments can use. On the face of it, this would seem to be undermining the role of the COI (Central Office of Information) which has run central government’s comms rosters.
However, the COI has welcomed the move and DCFS seem to be keen to stress that their new roster would ‘complement’ the COI’s. But how will that work? With 29 COI rosters, now called ‘frameworks’, covering everything from advertising to media buying, research to evaluation, film and online to events and exhibitions, there don’t seem to be any gaps for DCFS’s roster to fill.
So what is driving this development? Do DCFS and other departments feel that the COI’s frameworks don’t contain the suppliers they want? Or perhaps they want to break free from COI’s project management. On major projects the COI’s expertise and strategic consultancy can add great value to departmental comms teams. But when a department has a clear idea of exactly what they need and simply want to appoint a supplier with the minimum hassle, sometimes the COI processes can feel a little cumbersome and costly.
Government departments have always had their own rosters and have had arrangements in place for other departments to use them. But in the last efficiency drive, the Department of Health certainly consolidated many of its own with the COI as a way of avoiding duplicative work. At a time when efficiency is at the fore more than ever, it seems an odd move to have different bits of government setting up similar rosters. Although it may be that the departments think they can create savings by providing an alternative to COI’s project management or by tying agencies into lower rates.
The one group who won’t see any efficiencies or savings from this move, however, are the agencies who face having to go through another time consuming procurement exercise to get on the new roster. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
New government comms roster
Interesting news this week that the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is looking to set up a roster of creative agencies that all government departments can use. On the face of it, this would seem to be undermining the role of the COI (Central Office of Information) which has run central government’s comms rosters.
However, the COI has welcomed the move and DCFS seem to be keen to stress that their new roster would ‘complement’ the COI’s. But how will that work? With 29 COI rosters, now called ‘frameworks’, covering everything from advertising to media buying, research to evaluation, film and online to events and exhibitions, there don’t seem to be any gaps for DCFS’s roster to fill.
So what is driving this development? Do DCFS and other departments feel that the COI’s frameworks don’t contain the suppliers they want? Or perhaps they want to break free from COI’s project management. On major projects the COI’s expertise and strategic consultancy can add great value to departmental comms teams. But when a department has a clear idea of exactly what they need and simply want to appoint a supplier with the minimum hassle, sometimes the COI processes can feel a little cumbersome and costly.
Government departments have always had their own rosters and have had arrangements in place for other departments to use them. But in the last efficiency drive, the Department of Health certainly consolidated many of its own with the COI as a way of avoiding duplicative work. At a time when efficiency is at the fore more than ever, it seems an odd move to have different bits of government setting up similar rosters. Although it may be that the departments think they can create savings by providing an alternative to COI’s project management or by tying agencies into lower rates.
The one group who won’t see any efficiencies or savings from this move, however, are the agencies who face having to go through another time consuming procurement exercise to get on the new roster. It will be interesting to see how this works out.