From: Tim Salmon, Chief Operating Officer
11 March 2011
via letter

Dear Neville

The Auditor was engaged by us to examine certain areas of our cost base — stationery, storage, mobile telephones and a number of others — to make recommendations as to how we could secure savings and to provide us with an indication of the extent of such possible savings. I was pleased that the review was unobtrusive, requiring relatively little input from our finance, IT or other support teams — which was just how you told us it would be.

The completed review indicated potential stationery savings of around 18%, without changing our core supplier and which equated to around £xx,000 per annum. As importantly, we benefited from The Auditor’s knowledge and experience in establishing a prescribed list of available stationery items in an on-line ordering system which they helped us establish with the key supplier.

While it was most frustrating they we were unable to secure savings in other areas such as telecoms, it was most gratifying that The Auditor could confirm that our contract rates were as good as they could possibly secure. It was also vindication of the hard work done by our teams in tendering and negotiating over an extended period.