Brian Strathie was concerned by the spending on office and fax consumables (£175,000 per annum on office consumables and around £240,000 on IT in 2004).

He called in The Auditor in December 2004 to benchmark Scottish Water's contracts for consumables.  They work on a 'No Win, No Fee' basis, being rewarded a share of savings for one year only.

After that, Scottish Water pockets it all.

They completed their interim audit in March 2005 and confirmed that significant savings were up for grabs, around 39% on IT and fax consumables - £107,000!

The Facilities team has been real Succeed heroes in beating down the costs.

The average monthly spend on office consumables is down from £14,500 in 2004/05 to around £9,000.

The team has worked hard to improve contract compliance from 20 per cent with the old supplier to 75% in June and now 83% in July under the new contract.

Scottish Water is now only buying around 300 different products compared with over 2,000 previously - another internal efficiency!

Cost reductions on IT and fax consumables have been slower, but the rates from the new supplier are now in place and should deliver around £60,000 in savings per year.

Procurement is still working with the IT department to produce further savings from the possible use of recycled toner, etc.

This is a good example of when people comply with processes we can save money and improve efficiency.