The Commercial Services team at Buckinghamshire County Council has driven significant savings from reducing spend on public notice advertising through lowering the demand using a phased approach. Spend is expected to reduce from circa £325,000 to circa £134,550 per annum.
In the first phase (January 2012), we decided to reduce the font size of our adverts from 7 point to 6 point. For such a simple change this reduced the advert size and cost by a staggering 31%. (£100,750)
To support the second phase (October 2012), the Commercial team brought in The Potent Mix to run a training session for staff placing adverts and to challenge the actual legal requirement in the adverts which has led to the removal of logos, contact names and a reduction in wording. The average savings from these changes is a further 40%. (£89,700).
Traditionally, procurement reviews have concentrated on market facing elements, so this is a really good example of where the team have considered demand management of a category. In terms of ease of implementation this is a quick win, however it requires strong joint working with the Place service (Planning, Transportation etc), and Legal service, together with a pragmatic approach from the Communications team.
Paul Raimbach,
Category Manager – Corporate, Buckinghamshire County Council
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