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On 17/06/2010 16:46, Henry Bremridge wrote:
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 01:53:04PM +0100, Julian Hall wrote:On 17/06/2010 13:06, Paul Sutton wrote:On 17/06/10 12:51, James Andrews wrote:My daughters school (Uffculme) use MS software pretty much exclusively. I was encountering consumer resistance from her as we were using Open Office at home and it is subtly different to the MS programs. So when I got her a new laptop, it was MS Windows and I bought a "student edition" of MS Office suite Even so there has been a couple of occasions when she has wanted to have MS Publisher or some other Billyware just because that's what the teacher was using. And the student edition doesn't include every single obscure program in the MS line up. Now the laptop is not connecting to the 'Net, apparently because we switched wireless routers and Windows XP Sp3 has various bizarre problems with interoperability. This is a PITA because most of her homework seems to involve googling for images to put in various presentationsMe again well the government are asking for ways they can save money, if schools had their IT budgets slashed perhaps they would wake up and start using open source software and make do with what is available to them, If IT budgets are being spent in such a way that it is having a negative affect on kids then something has to be done giving hand outs to poor children is not really the answer if we are meant to be cutting billions from the deficit, PaulSome time ago Gareth Edwards (the legendary Welsh rugby player) said of Shane Williams that 'he has to learn to play smarter not harder' since people were now catching him. I made the observation that government organisations need to learn to spend smarter not harder. Having worked in Purchasing and Supplies previously in local government, I think it is noteworthy how many departments flood Supplies with requisitions in March just to use up their budgets so they won't get cut the following financial year. It would be interesting if an FOI request regarding purchasing trends showed a spike in orders nationally in March, and how many of them could actually be justified.can you suggest an appropriate wording. I would be glad to send it off
Hi Henry,Never having done one before this may be rough and ready, or complete rubbish but it's a starting place.
Information required: Volume of requisitions and/or purchase orders placed per month by department for the financial year 2009-2010 / OR / for the council as a whole for [a reasonable time period - To establish a trend I'd say five years minimum would be needed?].
Alternatively if they supplied one year's figures broken down by department that would be enough to show if they all spiked in March. I think either approach would work.
In a nutshell, either the whole council for several years, or by department for one year.
Justification: In the current economic climate everyone - particularly government departments - is focussing on saving money. The requested information is in the public interest as it will indicate if departments are employing the tactic of spending their budget in full at the end of financial years in order to mask the volume of savings that could be made and safeguard their budgets from future cuts.
Julian -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html