Peter Smith

Updated at: Aug. 13, 2015, 2:59 a.m.

Peter is a professional leader with considerable expertise and experience in public and private sector procurement performance improvement. He has an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University, is a Fellow and was 2003 President of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, and has written and spoken widely about procurement issues. He was recently appointed a Commissioner (non-executive Director) for the Legal Services Commission, with a particular brief around commercial matters related to Legal Aid provision. He is also a non-executive director of Remploy, the UK's leading provider of employment services for disabled people and other disadvantaged groups.

Before moving into consultancy, he was Procurement Director for the Department of Social Security (the DSS — the largest UK Government central Department) and the NatWest Group, as well as holding senior positions in the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation and the Mars Group. At the DSS he led the procurement of the largest ever (and very successful) public sector Property contract in Europe; the PRIME PFI deal. In virtually all his senior roles, he has driven significant change; either in developing a ‘green field’ procurement organisation (such as the UK National Police Procurement Centre); or in leading major structural / strategic change (e.g. NatWest).

Peter founded ‘Procurement Excellence’ in ‘04, and since then has won significant strategic consulting, interim management and training work, with a particular focus on Government clients. Peter’s largest client is the Treasury’s Office of Government Commerce. He has supported the Gershon Efficiency Review, and work on procurement structures and strategy across Government. He developed the best practice model used by OGC as the basis for their Procurement Capability Reviews of government departments, and has acted as external reviewer for 4 major Departments over the last year; DWP, DfES (now DCSF), DfT, and most recently, the Department of Health.


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